GIFT   OF 
MICHAEL  REESE 


The  True  Benjamin  Franklin 


^AWQt^sf; »,  ,- 


THE   DUPLESSIS    PORTRAIT   OF    FRANKLIN 


•The  True 
Benjamin  Franklin  • 


By 

Sydney  George  Fisher 

Author  of  "  Men,  Women,  and  Manners  in  Colonial  Times,' 
"  The  Making  of  Pennsylvania,"  "  The  Evolu 
tion  of  the  Constitution,"  etc. 


"  If  rigid  moral  analysis  be  not  the  purjio^c  of  jiistotical 
writing,  there  is  no  more  value  in  it  tha^  fti'th*'  ^ctiftiis  ,of 
mythological  antiquity." — CHAKLJS  FRANCIS  ADAMS,  SR. 


Philadelphia 

J.  B.  Lippincott  Company 
1899 


COPYRIGHT,  1898 

BY 

J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY 

71* 


SECOND   EDITION 


^i 
Preface 

THIS  analysis  of  the  life  and  character  of  Franklin 
has  in  view  a  similar  object  H  to  that  of  the  volume 
entitled  "The  True  George. ..  Washington,"  which  was 
prepared  for  the  publishers rj  by  Mr.  Paul  Leicester 
Ford  and  issued  a  year  or  two  ago. 

Washington  sadly  needed  to  be  humanized,  to  be 
rescued  from  the  myth-making  process  which  had 
been  destroying  all  that  was  lovable  in  his  character 
and  turning  him  into  a  mere  bundle  of  abstract 
qualities  which  it  was  piously  supposed  would  be 
wholesome  examples  for  the  American  people.  This 
assumption  that  our  people  are  children  who  must 
not  be  told  the  eternal  truths  of  human  nature,  but 
deceived  into  goodness  by  wooden  heroes  and  lay 
figures,  seems,  fortunately,  to  be  passing  away,  and 
in  a  few  years  it  will  be  a  strange  phase  to  look  back 
upon. 

So  thorough  and  systematic  has  been  the  expur 
gating  during  the  last  century  that  some  of  its  details 
are  very  curious.  It  is  astonishing  how  easily  an 
otherwise  respectable  editor  or  biographer  can  get 
himself  into  a  state  of  complete  intellectual  dishon 
esty.  It  is  interesting  to  follow  one  of  these  literary 
criminals  and  see  the  minute  care  with  which  he 
manufactures  an  entirely  new  and  imaginary  being 
out  of  the  real  man  who  has  been  placed  in  his 
hands.  He  will  not  allow  his  victim  to  say  even  a 

5 


PREFACE 

single  word  which  he  considers  unbecoming.  The 
story  is  told  that  Washington  wrote  in  one  of  his 
letters  that  a  certain  movement  of  the  enemy  would 
not  amount  to  a  flea-bite ;  but  one  of  his  editors 
struck  out  the  passage  as  unfit  to  be  printed.  He 
thought,  I  suppose,  that  Washington  could  not  take 
care  of  his  own  dignity. 

Franklin  in  his  Autobiography  tells  us  that  when 
working  as  a  journeyman  printer  in  London  he 
drank  nothing  but  water,  and  his  fellow-workmen, 
in  consequence,  called  him  the  "  Water- American  ;" 
but  Weems  in  his  version  of  the  Autobiography 
makes  him  say  that  they  called  him  the  "  American 
Aquatic,"  an  expression  which  the  vile  taste  of  that 
time  was  pleased  to  consider  elegant  diction.  In 
the  same  way  Temple  Franklin  made  alterations  in 
his  grandfather's  writings,  changing  their  vigorous 
Anglo-Saxon  into  stilted  Latin  phrases. 

It  is  curious  that  American  myth-making  is  so 
unlike  the  ancient  myth-making  which  as  time  went 
on  made  its  gods  and  goddesses  more  and  more  hu 
man  with  mortal  loves  and  passions.  Our  process  is 
just  the  reverse.  Out  of  a  man  who  actually  lived 
among  us  and  of  whose  life  we  have  many  truthful 
details  we  make  an  impossible  abstraction  of  idealized 
virtues.  It  may  be  said  that  this  could  never  happen 
among  a  people  of  strong  artistic  instincts,  and  we 
have  certainly  in  our  conceptions  of  art  been  the 
atrical  and  imitative  rather  than  dramatic  and  real. 
Possibly  the  check  which  is  being  given  to  our  pe 
culiar  myth-making  is  a  favorable  sign  for  our  art 

The  myth-makers  could  not  work  with  Franklin 
6 


PREFACE 

in  quite  the  same  way  that  they  worked  with  Wash 
ington.  With  Washington  they  ignored  his  personal 
traits  and  habits,  building  him  up  into  a  cold  military 
and  political  wonder.  But  Franklin's  human  side 
would  not  down  so  easily.  The  human  in  him  was 
so  interlaced  with  the  divine  that  the  one  dragged 
the  other  into  light.  His  dramatic  and  artistic  sense 
was  very  strong,  far  stronger  than  in  most  distin 
guished  Americans ;  and  he  made  so  many  plain 
statements  about  his  own  shortcomings,  and  followed 
pleasure  and  natural  instincts  so  sympathetically, 
broadly,  and  openly,  that  the  efforts  to  prepare  him 
for  exhibition  are  usually  ludicrous  failures. 

But  the  eulogists  soon  found  an  effective  way  to 
handle  him.  Although  they  could  ignore  certain 
phases  of  his  character  only  so  far  as  the  genial  old 
fellow  would  let  them,  they  could  exaggerate  the 
other  phases  to  an  almost  unlimited  extent ;  for  his 
career  was  in  many  ways  peculiarly  open  to  exag 
geration.  It  was  longer,  more  varied,  and  more  full 
of  controversy  than  Washington's.  Washington  was 
twenty-six  years  younger  than  Franklin  and  died 
at  the  age  of  sixty-seven,  while  Franklin  lived  to  be 
eighty-four.  Washington's  important  public  life  was 
all  covered  by  the  twenty-two  years  from  1775  to 
1797,  and  during  more  than  three  of  those  years  he 
was  in  retirement  at  Mount  Vernon.  But  Franklin 
was  an  active  politician,  philosopher,  man  of  science, 
author,  philanthropist,  reformer,  and  diplomat  for 
the  forty-odd  years  from  1745  to  1788. 

Almost  every  event  of  his  life  has  been  distorted 
until,  from  the  great  and  accomplished  man  he  really 

7 


PREFACE 

was,  he  has  been  magnified  into  an  impossible 
prodigy.  Almost  everything  he  wrote  about  in 
science  has  been  put  down  as  a  discovery.  His 
wonderful  ability  in  expressing  himself  has  assisted 
in  this  ;  for  if  ten  men  wrote  on  a  subject  and  Frank 
lin  was  one  of  them,  his  statement  is  the  one  most 
likely  to  be  preserved,  because  the  others,  being  infe 
rior  in  language,  are  soon  forgotten  and  lost. 

Every  scrap  of  paper  he  wrote  upon  is  now  consid 
ered  a  precious  relic  and  a  great  deal  of  it  is  printed, 
so  that  statements  which  were  but  memoranda  or 
merely  his  way  of  formulating  other  men's  knowl 
edge  for  his  own  convenience  or  for  the  sake  of 
writing  a  pleasant  letter  to  a  friend,  are  given  undue 
importance.  Indeed,  when  we  read  one  of  these 
letters  or  memoranda  it  is  so  clearly  and  beautifully 
expressed  and  put  in  such  a  captivating  form  that, 
as  the  editor  craftily  forbears  to  comment  on  it,  we 
instinctively  conclude  that  it  must  have  been  a  gift 
of  new  knowledge  to  mankind. 

The  persistency  with  which  people  have  tried  to 
magnify  Franklin  is  curiously  shown  in  the  peculiar 
way  in  which  James  Logan's  translation  of  Cicero's 
essay  on  old  age  was  attributed  to  him.  This  trans 
lation  with  notes  and  a  preface  was  made  by  Logan 
and  printed  in  1744  by  Franklin  in  his  Philadelphia 
printing-office,  and  at  the  foot  of  the  title-page 
Franklin's  name  appeared  as  the  printer.  In  1778 
the  book  was  reprinted  in  London,  with  Franklin's 
name  on  the  title-page  as  the  translator.  In  1809 
one  of  his  editors,  William  Duane,  actually  had 
this  translation  printed  in  his  edition  of  Franklin's 

8 


PREFACE 

works.  The  editor  was  afterwards  accused  of  having 
done  this  with  full  knowledge  that  the  translation 
had  not  been  made  by  Franklin  ;  but,  under  the 
code  of  literary  morals  which  has  so  long  prevailed, 
I  suppose  he  would  be  held  excusable. 

One  of  Franklin's  claims  to  renown  is  that  he  was 
a  self-made  man,  the  first  distinguished  American 
who  was  created  in  that  way ;  and  it  would  seem, 
therefore,  all  the  more  necessary  that  he  should  be 
allowed  to  remain  as  he  made  himself.  I  have  en 
deavored  to  act  upon  this  principle  and  so  far  as 
possible  to  let  Franklin  speak  for  himself.  The  ana 
lytical  method  of  writing  a  man's  life  is  well  suited 
to  this  purpose.  There  are  already  chronological 
biographies  of  Franklin  in  two  volumes  or  more  giv 
ing  the  events  in  order  with  very  full  details  from  his 
birth  to  his  death.  The  present  single  volume  is 
more  in  the  way  of  an  estimate  of  his  position,  worth, 
and  work,  and  yet  gives,  I  believe,  every  essential  fact 
of  his  career  with  enough  detail  to  enable  the  reader 
to  appreciate  it*  At  the-  same  tirrje  the  chapters 
have  been  arranged  with  such  regard  to  chronological 
order  as  to  show  the  "development  of  character  and 
achievement  from  youth  to  age. 


Contents 


CHAPTER  PAO» 

^  I.— PHYSICAL  CHARACTERISTICS 17 

II.— EDUCATION 41 

III. — RELIGION  AND  MORALS 78 

IV. — BUSINESS  AND  LITERATURE 132 

V.— SCIENCE 167 

VI. — THE  PENNSYLVANIA  POLITICIAN 192 

VII. — DIFFICULTIES  AND  FAILURE  IN  ENGLAND 231 

VIII.— AT  HOME  AGAIN 265 

IX. — THE  EMBASSY  TO  FRANCE  AND  ITS  SCANDALS  .   .   .  270 

X. — PLEASURES  AND  DIPLOMACY  IN  FRANCE 314 

XI.— THE  CONSTITUTION-MAKER 349 


ii 


List  of  Illustrations  with  Notes 

PAGE 

THE  DUPLESSIS  PORTRAIT  OF  FRANKLIN     Frontispiece. 

Painted  from  life  by  Duplessis  in  Paris  in  1778,  and 
believed  to  be  the  best  likeness  of  Franklin.  The  repro 
duction  is  from  the  original  in  the  Academy  of  Fine  Arts, 
Philadelphia,  by  permission  of  the  owner.  Duplessis  also 
made  a  pastel  drawing  of  Franklin  in  1783,  which  has  often 
been  reproduced. 

FRANKLIN  TOWED  BY  HIS  KITE 19 

This  picture  is  copied  from  an  engraving  on  the  title-page 
of  the  old  English  edition  of  Franklin's  Works,  published 
in  1806  by  J.  Johnson  &  Co.,  London. 

THE  SUMNER  PORTRAIT  OF  FRANKLIN 29 

Painted,  as  is  supposed,  in  London  in  1726,  when  he  was 
twenty  years  old,  and  now  in  the  possession  of  Harvard 
University.  Its  history  and  the  doubts  as  to  its  authenticity 
are  given  in  the  text. 

THE  MARTIN  PORTRAIT  OF  FRANKLIN 32 

Painted  by  Martin  in  England  in  1765,  at  the  request  of 
Mr.  Robert  Alexander,  for  whom  Franklin  had  performed 
a  service  in  examining  some  documents  and  giving  his 
opinion. 

THE  GRUNDMANN  IDEAL  PORTRAIT  OF  FRANKLIN     .      34 

Painted  by  Otto  Grundmann,  a  German  artist  in  America, 
after  a  careful  study  of  Franklin's  career  and  of  the  por 
traits  of  him  taken  from  life.  The  original  is  now  in  the 
Boston  Art  Museum. 

HOUSE  IN  WHICH  FRANKLIN  WAS  BORN 42 

Franklin's  parents  lived  in  this  house,  which  stood  on  Milk 
Street,  Boston,  until  1810,  when  it  was  destroyed  by  fire. 

PRINTING-PRESS  AT  WHICH  FRANKLIN  WORKED  WHEN 
A  BOY  IN  BOSTON 45 

From  a  photograph  kindly  furnished  by  the  Mechanics' 

Institute  of  Boston,  in  whose  rooms  the  press  is  exhibited. 

13 


LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS   WITH   NOTES 

PAGB 

THE  BOOK  OF  COMMON  PRAYER  AS  ABRIDGED   BY 
LORD  DESPENCER  AND  FRANKLIN 101 

The  changes  in  the  Venite  on  the  left-hand  page  are  by 
Franklin,  and  perhaps  also  those  in  the  Te  Deum.  The 
changes  in  the  rubrics  are  by  Lord  Despencer,  and  pos 
sibly  he  also  made  the  changes  in  the  Te  Deum.  The 
copy  of  the  prayer-book  from  which  this  reproduction  is 
made  is  in  the  collection  of  Mr.  Howard  Edwards,  of 
Philadelphia. 

JOHN  FOXCROFT 105 

Reproduced  by  permission  of  the  Historical  Society  of 
Pennsylvania  from  the  painting  in  their  possession.  It 
has  been  supposed  by  some  to  be  a  portrait  of  Franklin ; 
but  it  has  not  the  slightest  resemblance  to  his  other  por 
traits,  and  the  letter  held  in  the  hand  is  addressed  to  John 
Foxcroft. 


WILLIAM    FRANKLIN,    ROYAL    GOVERNOR    OF    NEW 

JERSEY 108 

Born  1730,  died  1813 ;  son  of  Benjamin  Franklin ;  was 
Governor  of  New  Jersey  from  1762  to  1776,  when  he  be 
came  a  Tory.  The  reproduction  is  from  an  etching  by 
Albert  Rosenthal  of  the  portrait  once  temporarily  in  the 
Philadelphia  Library  and  owned  by  Dr.  T.  Hewson  Bache, 
of  Philadelphia. 

WILLIAM  TEMPLE  FRANKLIN 113 

Born  1760,  died  1823,  son  of  William  Franklin,  Governor 
of  New  Jersey.  He  was  brought  up  principally  by  his 
grandfather,  for  whom  he  acted  as  secretary  in  Paris,  dur 
ing  the  Revolution,  and  by  whom  he  was  saved  from  fol 
lowing  his  father  to  Toryism.  The  reproduction  is  from 
an  etching  by  Albert  Rosenthal  of  the  portrait  in  the 
Trumbull  Collection,  Yale  School  of  Art. 


MRS.  FRANKLIN 116 

This  reproduction  is  from  the  portrait  painted  by  Matthew 
Pratt,  and  now  in  the  possession  of  Rev.  F.  B.  Hodge, 
of  Wilkesbarre,  Pennsylvania. 
14 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  WITH   NOTES 

PAOB 

MRS.  SARAH  BACHE 119 

This  picture  is  copied  from  an  engraved  reproduction 
which  has  often  appeared  in  books  relating  to  Franklin ; 
but  none  of  these  reproductions  are  faithful  copies  of  the 
original  painting,  which  represents  an  older  and  less  hand 
some  woman,  with  more  rugged  features  and  more  resem 
blance  to  Franklin.  Permission  to  reproduce  the  painting 
could  not  be  secured. 

FRONT  PAGE  OF  THE  FIRST  NUMBER  OF  THE  "  PENN 
SYLVANIA  GAZETTE" 135 

Reproduced  by  permission  from  the  collection  of  the  His 
torical  Society  of  Pennsylvania. 

TITLE-PAGE  OF  POOR  RICHARD'S  ALMANAC  FOR  1733  .     144 

Reproduced  by  permission  from  the  collection  of  the  His 
torical  Society  of  Pennsylvania. 

FRANKLIN'S  MARITIME  SUGGESTIONS 188 

These  figures  accompanied  Franklin's  letter  to  Alphonsus 
Le  Roy  on  maritime  improvements. 

FRANKLIN'S  LETTER  TO  STRAHAN 267 

William  Strahan  was  Franklin's  intimate  friend,  although 
they  differed  on  the  subject  of  the  Revolution.  The  letter 
was  half  jest,  half  earnest,  and  in  this  tone  Franklin  always 
wrote  to  him  on  political  subjects.  In  1784  he  wrote  him 
an  affectionate,  but  teasing  and  sarcastic  letter  on  the  suc 
cess  of  the  Revolution. 

FRANKLIN  CANNOT  DIE 275 

From  an  old  French  engraving  in  the  collection  of  Mr. 
Clarence  S.  Dement,  of  Philadelphia.  Death  has  seized 
Franklin  and  is  dragging  him  to  the  lower  world.  The 
figure  half  kneeling  is  America,  with  her  bow  and  arrows 
and  the  skin  of  a  wild  beast,  imploring  Death  to  spare  her 
deliverer.  Fame  is  flying  in  the  air,  with  a  crape  on  her 
arm  and  a  trumpet,  announcing  that  le grand  Franklin  has 
saved  his  country  and  given  her  liberty  in  spite  of  tyrants. 
The  spirit  of  Philosophy  and  a  warrior  are  weeping  at  the 
foot  of  the  monument,  on  which  is  a  lightning-rod ;  while 
France,  a  fair,  soft  woman,  seizes  Franklin  in  her  arms  to 
bear  him  to  the  sky. 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS   WITH    NOTES 

PAGE 

AMERICA  SET  FREE  BY  FRANKLIN 309 

From  an  old  French  engraving  in  the  collection  of  Mr. 
Clarence  S.  Bement,  of  Philadelphia.  Like  the  preceding 
one,  from  the  same  collection,  it  represents  America  as  a 
savage,  in  accordance  with  the  French  ideas  of  that  time. 

FRANKLIN  TEARS  THE  LIGHTNING  FROM  THE  SKY 
AND  THE  SCEPTRE  FROM  THE  TYRANTS  .  .  .  .  312 

From  an  old  French  engraving  in  the  collection  of  Mr. 
Clarence  S.  Bement,  of  Philadelphia.  The  figure  with  her 
arm  on  Franklin's  lap  is  America. 

FRANKLIN  RELICS  IN  THE  POSSESSION  OF  THE  HIS 
TORICAL  SOCIETY  OF  PENNSYLVANIA 330 

The  cups  and  saucers  are  Dresden  china,  given  him  by 
Madame  Helvetius.  The  china  punch-barrel  was  given 
him  by  Count  d' Artois  ;  the  wine-glass  is  one  of  the  heavy  ' 
kind  then  in  use ;  the  picture-frame  contains  a  printed 
dinner  invitation  sent  by  him  to  the  members  of  the  Con 
stitutional  Convention  of  1787. 

PORTRAIT  OF  Louis  XVI 346 

The  kings  of  France  at  that  time  usually  gave  their  por 
trait  to  a  foreign  ambassador  on  his  return  to  his  country. 
This  one,  by  Sicardi,  which  was  given  to  Franklin,  was 
formerly  surrounded  by  two  rows  of  four  hundred  and 
eight  diamonds,  and  was  probably  worth  from  ten  to  fifteen 
thousand  dollars.  It  is  now  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  J. 
May  Duane,  of  Philadelphia,  by  whose  permission  it  is 
reproduced. 

FRANKLIN  PORTRAIT  IN  WEST  COLLECTION     .     .     .    350 

This  portrait  is  a  pencil  sketch  recently  sold  with  other 
property  of  Benjamin  West,  and  purchased  by  the  Hon. 
S.  W.  Pennypacker,  of  Philadelphia,  by  whose  permission 
it  is  reproduced.  It  is  supposed  to  be  a  drawing  by  some 
unknown  artist  of  the  bust  by  Ceracchi. 

FRANKLIN'S  GRAVE  IN  CHRIST  CHURCH  GRAVEYARD, 
PHILADELPHIA 360 

The  flat  stone  marks  the  grave  of  Franklin  and  his  wife. 
The  larger  upright  stone  is  in  memory  of  John  Read,  Mrs. 
Franklin's  father,  and   the  smaller  one  is  in  memory  of 
Franklin's  son,  Francis,  who  died  in  infancy. 
16 


The  True 
Benjamin   Franklin 


PHYSICAL   CHARACTERISTICS 

f  FRANKLIN  was  a  rather  large  man,  and  is  supposed 
to  have  been  about  five  feet  ten  inches  in  height 
In  his  youth  he  was  stout,  and  in  old  age  corpulent 
and  heavy,  with  rounded  shoulders.  The  portraits 
of  him  reveal  a  very  vigorous-looking  man,  with  a 
thick  upper  arm  and  a  figure  which,  even  in  old  age, 
was  full  and  rounded.  In  fact,  this  rounded  con 
tour  is  his  most  striking  characteristic,  as  the  angular 
outline  is  the  characteristic  of  Lincoln.  Franklin's 
figure  was  a  series  of  harmonious  curves,  which  make 
pictures  of  him  always  pleasing.  These  curves  ex 
tended  over  his  head  and  even  to  the  lines  of  his 
face,  softening  the  expression,  slightly  veiling  the 
iron  resolution,  and  entirely  consistent  with  the  wide 
sympathies,  varied  powers,  infinite  shrewdness,  and 
vast  experience  which  we  know  he  ppssessed.  | , 

In  his  earliest  portrait  as  a,  yoteifi  'vf ,  twenty;  he 
looks  as  if  his  bones  were,  large  -fi  but  'irv  .later,  por», 
traits  this  largeness  of  bone  which  lie  'alight  Have 
had  from  his  Massachusetts  origin  is  not  so  evident 

2  17 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

He  was,  however,  very  muscular,  and  prided  himself 
on  it.  When  he  was  a  young  printer,  as  he  tells  us  in 
his  Autobiography,  he  could  carry  with  ease  a  large 
form  of  letters  in  each  hand  up  and  down  stairs.  In 
his  old  age,  when  past  eighty,  he  is  described  as  insist 
ing  on  lifting  unaided  heavy  books  and  dictionaries  to 
show  the  strength  he  still  retained. 

He  was  not  brought  up  on  fox-hunting  and  other 
sports,  like  Washington,  and  there  are  no  amuse 
ments  of  this  sort  to  record  of  him,  except  his  swim 
ming,  in  which  he  took  great  delight  and  continued 
until  long  after  he  had  ceased  to  be  a  youth.  He 
appears,  when  a  boy,  to  have  been  fond  of  sailing 
in  Boston  Harbor,  but  has  told  us  little  about  it. 
In  swimming  he  excelled.  He  could  perform  all  the 
ordinary  feats  in  the  water  which  were  described  in 
the  swimming-books  of  his  day,  and  on  one  occa 
sion  tied  himself  to  the  string  of  his  kite  and  was 
towed  by  it  across  a  pond  a  mile  wide.  In  after- 
years  he  believed  that  he  could  in  this  way  cross  the 
English  Channel  from  Dover  to  Calais,  but  he  ad 
mitted  that  the  packet-boat  was  preferable. 

His  natural  fondness  for  experiment  led  him  to 
try  the  effect  of  fastening  oval  paddles  to  his  hands, 
which  gave  him  greater  speed  in  swimming,  but  were 
too  fatiguing  to  his  wrists.  Paddles  or  large  sandals 
fastened  to  his  feet  he  soon  found  altered  the  stroke, 
which,  the  obserysrtt  :boy  had  discovered  was  made 
with 'the  inside"  of  ?the  feet  and  ankles  as  well  as  with 
'the:  flat ,  ,p£f V  pf  the  foot. '; 

'  While  iii  London,  as  a  wandering  young  journey 
man  printer,  he  taught  an  acquaintance,  Wygate,  to 

18 


PHYSICAL   CHARACTERISTICS 

swim  in  two  lessons.  Returning  from  Chelsea  with  a 
party  of  Wygate's  friends,  he  gave  them  an  exhibition 
of  his  skill,  going  through  all  the  usual  tricks  in  the 
water,  to  their  great  amazement  and  admiration,  and 
swimming  from  near  Chelsea  to  Blackfriars,  a  distance 
of  four  miles.  Wygate  proposed  that  they  should 
travel  through  Europe,  maintaining  themselves  by 
giving  swimming-lessons,  and  Franklin  was  at  first 
inclined  to  adopt  the  suggestion. 

Just  as  he  was  on  the  eve  of  returning  to  Pennsyl 
vania,  Sir  William  Wyndham,  at  one  time  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer,  having  heard  of  his  swimming 
feats,  wanted  to  engage  him  to  teach  his  sons ;  but 
his  ship  being  about  to  sail,  Franklin  was  obliged  to 
decline.  If  he  had  remained  in  England,  he  tells  us, 
he  would  probably  have  started  a  swimming-school. 

When  forty-three  years  old,  retired  from  active 
business,  and  deep  in  scientific  researches,  he  lived 
in  a  house  at  Second  and  Race  Streets,  Philadelphia. 
His  garden  is  supposed  to  have  extended  to  the  river, 
where  every  warm  summer  evening  he  used  to  spend 
an  hour  or  two  swimming  and  sporting  in  the  water. 

This  skill  in  swimming  and  the  agility  and  grace 
which  Franklin  displayed  in  performing  feats  in  the 
water  are  good  tests  of  general  strength  of  muscles, 
lungs,  and  heart.  So  far  as  can  be  discovered,  only 
one  instance  is  recorded  of  his  using  his  physical 
power  to  do  violence  to  his  fellow-man. 

He  had  a  friend  named  Collins,  rather  inclined  to 
drink,  who,  being  in  a  boat  with  Franklin  and  some 
other  youths,  on  the  Delaware,  refused  to  take  his 
turn  at  rowing.  He  announced  that  the  others 

19 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

should  row  him  home.  Franklin,  already  much 
provoked  at  him  for  not  returning  money  which  he 
had  lent  him,  and  for  other  misconduct,  insisted  that 
he  row  his  share.  Collins  replied  that  Franklin 
should  row  or  he  would  throw  him  overboard,  and, 
as  he  was  approaching  him  for  that  purpose,  Franklin 
seized  him  by  the  collar  and  breeches  and  threw  him 
into  the  river,  where  they  kept  him  till  his  strength 
was  exhausted  and  his  temper  cooled. 

Until  he  was  forty  years  old  Franklin  worked  on 
his  own  account  or  for  others  as  a  printer,  which  in 
cluded  hard  manual  labor ;  for,  even  when  in  busi 
ness  for  himself,  he  did  everything, — made  his  own 
ink,  engraved  wooden  cuts  and  ornaments,  set  the 
type,  and  worked  the  heavy  hand-presses.  His 
pleasures  were  books,  the  theatre,  and  love-affairs. 
Except  swimming,  he  had  no  taste  for  out-door 
amusements.  Sport,  either  with  rod,  gun,  horse, 
or  hound,  was  altogether  out  of  his  line.  As  he 
became  prosperous  and  retired  from  the  active  busi 
ness  of  money-getting,  he  led  an  entirely  sedentary 
life  to  the  end  of  his  long  career. 

Although  he  did  a  vast  amount  of  work  in  his 
time,  was  fond  of  early  rising,  and  had  the  greatest 
endurance  and  capacity  for  labor,  there  was,  never 
theless,  a  touch  of  indolence  about  him.  He  did 
the  things  which  he  loved  and  which  came  easy  to 
him,  cultivated  his  tastes  and  followed  their  bent  in 
a  way  rather  unusual  in  self-made  men.  It  has  been 
said  of  him  that  he  never  had  the  patience  to  write 
a  book.  His  writings  have  exerted  great  influence, 
are  now  considered  of  inestimable  value,  and  fill  ten 

20 


PHYSICAL   CHARACTERISTICS 

large  volumes,  but  they  are  all  occasional  pieces,  let 
ters,  and  pamphlets  written  to  satisfy  some  need  of 
the  hour. 

His  indolence  was  more  in  his  manner  than  in  his 
character.  It  was  the  confident  indolence  of  genius. 
He  was  never  in  a  hurry,  and  this  was  perhaps  one 
of  the  secrets  of  his  success.  His  portraits  all  show 
this  trait.  In  nearly  every  one  of  them  the  whole 
attitude,  the  droop  of  the  shoulders  and  arms,  and 
the  quietude  of  the  face  are  reposeful. 

He  seems  to  have  been  totally  without  either 
irritability  or  excitability.  In  this  he  was  the  reverse 
of  Washington,  who  was  subject  to  violent  outbursts 
of  anger,  could  swear  "like  an  angel  of  God,"  as 
one  of  his  officers  said,  and  had  a  fiery  temper  to 
control.  Perhaps  Franklin's  strong  sense  of  humor 
saved  him  from  oaths ;  there  are  no  swearing  stories 
recorded  of  him  ;  instead  of  them  we  have  innumer 
able  jokes  and  witticisms.  His  anger  when  aroused 
was  most  deliberate,  calculating,  and  judicious.  His 
enemies  and  opponents  he  always  ridiculed,  often, 
however,  with  so  little  malice  or  sting  that  I  have  no 
doubt  they  were  sometimes  compelled  to  join  in  the 
laugh.  He  never  attacked  or  abused. 

Contentment  was  a  natural  consequence  of  these 
qualities,  and  contributed  largely  to  maintain  his 
vigor  through  eighty-four  years  of  a  very  stormy 
life.  It  was  a  family  trait  Many  of  his  relations 
possessed  it ;  and  he  describes  some  of  them  whom 
he  looked  up  in  England  as  living  in  happiness  and 
enjoyment,  in  spite  of  the  greatest  poverty.  Some 
able  men  struggle  with  violence,  bitterness,  and  heart- 

21 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

ache  for  the  great  prizes  of  life,  but  all  these  prizes 
tumbled  in  on  Franklin,  who  seems  to  have  had  a 
fairy  that  brought  them  to  him  in  obedience  to  his 
slightest  wish. 

His  easy-going  sedentary  life,  of  course,  told  on 
him  in  time.  After  middle  life  he  had  both  the 
gout  and  the  stone,  but  his  natural  vitality  fortified 
him  against  them.  He  was  as  temperate  as  it  was 
possible  to  be  in  that  age,  and  he  studied  his  con 
stitution  and  its  requirements  very  closely.  He  was 
so  much  interested  in  science  that  he  not  infrequently 
observed,  reasoned,  and  to  some  extent  experimented 
in  the  domain  which  properly  belongs  to  physicians. 

When  only  fifteen  years  old,  and  apprenticed  in 
the  printing-office  of  his  brother  in  Boston,  in  the 
year  1721,  he  became  a  vegetarian.  A  book  written 
by  one  of  the  people  who  have  for  many  centuries 
been  advocating  that  plan  of  living  fell  in  his  way 
and  converted  him.  It  appealed  to  his  natural 
economy  and  to  his  desire  for  spare  money  with 
which  to  buy  books.  He  learned  from  the  book  the 
various  ways  of  cooking  vegetables,  and  told  his 
brother  that  if  he  would  give  him  half  the  money 
paid  for  his  board  he  would  board  himself.  He 
found  very  soon  that  he  could  pay  for  his  vegetable 
diet  and  still  save  half  the  money  allowed  him,  and 
that  he  could  also  very  quickly  eat  his  rice,  potatoes, 
and  pudding  at  the  printing-office  and  have  most 
of  the  dinner-hour  for  reading  the  books  his  spare 
money  procured. 

This  was  calculating  very  closely  for  a  boy  of 
fifteen,  and  shows  unusual  ability  as  well  as  willing- 

22 


PHYSICAL   CHARACTERISTICS 

ness  to  observe  and  master  small  details.  Such 
ability  usually  comes  later  in  life  with  strengthened 
intellect,  but  Franklin  seems  to  have  had  this  sort  of 
mature  strength  very  early. 

He  did  not  remain  an  entire  convert  to  the  vege 
tarians,  but  he  often  practised  their  methods  and 
apparently  found  no  inconvenience  in  it.  He  could 
eat  almost  anything,  and  change  from  one  diet  to 
another  without  difficulty.  Two  years  after  his  first 
experiment  with  vegetarianism  he  ran  away  from  his 
brother  at  Boston,  and  found  work  at  Philadelphia 
with  a  rough,  ignorant  old  printer  named  Keimer, 
who  wanted,  among  other  projects,  to  form  a  re- 
ligous  sect,  and  to  have  Franklin  help  him.  Franklin 
played  with  his  ideas  for  a  while,  and  finally  said  that 
he  would  agree  to  wear  a  long  beard  and  observe 
Saturday  instead  of  Sunday,  like  Keimer,  if  Keimer 
would  join  him  in  a  vegetable  diet. 

He  found  a  woman  in  the  neighborhood  to  cook 
for  them,  and  taught  her  how  to  prepare  forty  kinds 
of  vegetable  food,  which  reduced  their  cost  of  living 
to  eighteen  pence  a  week  for  each.  But  Keimer, 
who  was  a  heavy  meat-eater,  could  stand  it  only 
three  months,  and  then  ordered  a  roast-pig  dinner, 
to  be  enjoyed  by  the  two  vegetarians  and  a  couple 
of  women.  Keimer,  however,  arrived  first  at  the 
feast,  and  before  any  of  his  guests  appeared  had  eaten 
the  whole  pig. 

While  working  in  the  printing-office  in  London, 
Franklin  drank  water,  to  the  great  astonishment 
and  disgust  of  the  beer-guzzling  Englishmen  who 
were  his  fellow-laborers.  They  could  not  under- 

23 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

stand  how  the  water-American,  as  they  called  him, 
could  go  without  strength-giving  beer  and  yet  be 
able  to  carry  a  large  form  of  letters  in  each  hand 
up  and  down  stairs,  while  they  could  carry  only  one 
with  both  hands. 

The  man  who  worked  one  of  the  presses  with 
Franklin  drank  a  pint  before  breakfast,  a  pint  with 
bread  and  cheese  for  breakfast,  one  between  break 
fast  and  dinner,  one  at  dinner,  another  at  six  o'  clock, 
and  another  after  he  had  finished  his  day's  work. 
The  American  boy,  with  his  early  mastery  of  details, 
reasoned  with  him  that  the  strength  furnished  by  the 
beer  could  come  only  from  the  barley  dissolved  in 
the  water  of  which  the  beer  was  composed  ;  that 
there  was  a  larger  portion  of  flour  in  a  penny  loaf, 
and  if  he  ate  a  loaf  and  drank  a  pint  of  water  with 
it  he  would  derive  more  strength  than  from  a  pint 
of  beer.  But  the  man  would  not  be  convinced,  and 
continued  to  spend  a  large  part  of  his  weekly  wages 
for  what  Franklin  calls  the  cursed  beverage  which 
kept  him  in  poverty  and  wretchedness. 

Franklin  was,  however,  never  a  teetotaler.  He 
loved,  as  he  tells  us,  a  glass  and  a  song.  Like 
other  people  of  that  time,  he  could  drink  withojit 
inconveniencea  quantity  which  nowadays,_especially 
iVi  AmericaTseems  surprising.__  Some  of  the  chief- 
justfees~oT  England  are  described  by  their  biogra 
pher,  Campbell,  as  two-  or  four-bottle  men,  accord 
ing  to  the  quantity  they  could  consume  at  a  sitting. 
Washington,  Mr.  Ford  tells  us,  drank  habitually  from 
half  a  pint  to  a  pint  of  Madeira,  besides  punch  and 
beer,  which  would  now  be  thought  a  great  deal. 

24 


PHYSICAL   CHARACTERISTICS 

But  Franklin  considered  himself  a  very  temperate 
man.  When  writing  his  Autobiography,  in  his  old 
age,  he  reminds  his  descendants  that  to  temperance 
their  ancestor  "  ascribes  his  long-continued  health 
and  what  is  still  left  to  him  of  a  good  constitution." 

Like  most  of  those  who  live  to  a  great  age,  he 
was  the  child  of  long-lived  parents.  "  My  mother/' 
he  says,  "  had  likewise  an  excellent  constitution ; 
she  suckled  all  her  ten  children.  I  never  knew  either 
my  father  or  mother  to  have  any  sickness  but  that 
of  which  they  died, — he  at  eighty-nine  and  she  at 
eighty-five  years  of  age." 

He  was  fond  of  air-baths,  which  he  seems  to  have 
thought  hardened  his  skin  and  helped  it  to  perform 
its  functions,  and  when  in  London  in  1768  he  wrote 
one  of  his  pretty  letters  about  them  to  Dr.  Dubourg 
in  Paris. 

"  You  know  the  cold  bath  has  long  been  in  vogue  here  as  a  tonic  ; 
but  the  shock  of  the  cold  water  has  always  appeared  to  me,  gener 
ally  speaking,  as  too  violent,  and  I  have  found  it  much  more  agree 
able  to  my  constitution  to  bathe  in  another  element,  I  mean  cold  air. 
With  this  view  I  rise  almost  every  morning  and  sit  in  my  chamber, 
without  any  clothes  whatever,  half  an  hour  or  an  hour,  according  to 
the  season,  either  reading  or  writing.  This  practice  is  riot  in  the 
least  painful,  but,  on  the  contrary,  agreeable  ;  and  if  I  return  to 
bed  afterwards,  before  I  dress  myself,  as  sometimes  happens,  I  make 
a  supplement  to  my  night's  rest  of  one  or  two  hours  of  the  most 
pleasing  sleep  that  can  be  imagined.  I  find  no  ill  consequences 
whatever  resulting  from  it,  and  that  at  least  it  does  not  injure 
my  health,  if  it  does  not  in  fact  contribute  much  to  its  preservation. 
I  shall  therefore  call  it  for  the  future  a  bracing  or  tonic  bath." 
(Bigelow's  Works  of  Franklin,  vol.  iv.  p.  193.) 

Some  years  afterwards,  while  in  Paris  and  suffering 
severely  from  gout  in  his  foot,  he  used  to  expose  the 

25 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

foot  naked  out  of  bed,  which  he  found  relieved  the 
pain,  because,  as  he  supposed,  the  skin  was  given 
more  freedom  to  act  in  a  natural  way.  His  remarks 
on  air-baths  were  published  in  the  early  editions  of 
his  works  and  induced  many  people  to  try  them. 
Davis,  in  his  "Travels  in  America,"  says  that  they 
must  have  been  suggested  to  him  by  a  passage  in 
Aubrey's  "  Miscellanies ;"  but,  after  searching  all 
through  that  old  volume,  I  cannot  find  it.  Franklin, 
however,  made  no  claim  to  a  discovery.  Such  baths 
have  been  used  by  physicians  to  strengthen  delicate 
persons,  but  in  a  more  guarded  and  careful  manner 
than  that  in  which  Franklin  applied  them. 

It  was  characteristic  of  his  genial  temperament 
that  he  loved  to  dream  in  his  sleep  and  to  recollect 
his  dreams.  "I  am  often,"  he  says,  "as  agreeably 
entertained  by  them  as  by  the  scenery  of  an  opera." 
He  wrote  a  pleasant  little  essay,  addressed  to  an 
unknown  young  lady,  on  "The  Art  of  Procuring 
Pleasant  Dreams,"  which  may  be  said  to  belong 
among  his  medical  writings.  Fresh  air  and  ventila 
tion  are  the  important  dream-persuaders,  and  bad 
dreams  and  restlessness  in  bed  are  caused  by  excess 
of  perspirable  matter  which  is  not  allowed  to  get 
away  from  the  skin.  Eat  less,  have  thinner  and 
more  porous  bedclothes,  and  if  you  are  restless,  get 
up,  beat  and  turn  your  pillows,  shake  all  the  sheets 
twenty  times,  and  walk  about  naked  for  a  while. 
Then,  when  you  return,  the  lovely  dreams  will 
come. 

Closely  connected  with  his  faith  in  air-baths  was 
his  opinion  that  people  seldom  caught  cold  from 

26 


PHYSICAL   CHARACTERISTICS 

exposure  to  air  or  even  to  dampness.  He  wrote 
letters  on  the  subject  and  prepared  notes  of  his 
observations.  These  notes  are  particularly  interest 
ing  and  full  of  curious  suggestions.  The  diseases 
usually  classed  as  colds,  he  said,  are  not  known  by 
that  name  in  any  other  language,  and  the  name  is 
misleading,  for  very  few  of  them  arise  from  cold  or 
dampness.  Indians  and  sailors,  who  are  continually 
wet,  do  not  catch  cold  ;  nor  is  cold  taken  by  swim 
ming.  And  he  went  on  enumerating  the  instances 
of  people  who  lived  in  the  woods,  in  barns,  or  with 
open  windows,  and,  instead  of  catching  cold,  found 
their  health  improved.  Cold,  he  thought,  was  caused 
in  most  cases  by  impure  air,  want  of  exercise,  or 
over-eating. 

"  I  have  long  been  satisfied  from  observation,  that  besides  the 
general  colds  now  termed  influenzas  (which  may  possibly  spread  by 
contagion,  as  well  as  by  a  particular  quality  of  the  air),  people  often 
catch  cold  from  one  another  when  shut  up  together  in  close  rooms 
and  coaches,  and  when  sitting  near  and  conversing  so  as  to  breathe 
in  each  other's  transpiration  ;  the  disorder  being  in  a  certain  state.  I 
think,  too,  that  it  is  the  frouzy,  corrupt  air  from  animal  substances, 
and  the  perspired  matter  from  our  bodies,  which  being  long  confined 
in  beds  not  lately  used,  and  clothes  not  lately  worn,  and  books  long 
shut  up  in  close  rooms,  obtains  that  kind  of  putridity  which  occasions 
the  colds  observed  upon  sleeping  in,  wearing,  and  turning  over  such 
bedclothes  or  books,  and  not  their  coldness  or  dampness.  From 
these  causes,  but  more  from  too  full  living,  with  too  little  exercise, 
proceed,  in  my  opinion,  most  of  the  disorders  which,  for  about  one 
hundred  and  fifty  years  past,  the  English  have  called  colds" 

Much  of  this  is  true  in  a  general  way,  for  medi 
cal  practitioners  have  long  held  that  all  colds  do 
not  arise  from  exposure  or  draughts  ;  but  they  do 
not  admit  that  colds  can  be  taken  from  turning  over 

27 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

old  books  and  clothes,  although  the  dust  from  these 
might  make  one  sneeze. 

John  Adams  and  Franklin  while  travelling  together 
through  New  Jersey  to  meet  Lord  Howe,  in  1776, 
discussed  the  question  of  colds,  and  the  former  has 
left  an  amusing  account  of  it.  The  taverns  were  so 
full  at  Brunswick  that  they  had  to  sleep  in  the  same 
bed.  Franklin  insisted  on  leaving  the  window  wide 
open,  and  discoursed  on  the  causes  of  colds  until 
they  both  fell  asleep. 

"I  have  often  asked  him  whether  a  person  heated  with  exercise 
going  suddenly  into  cold  air,  or  standing  still  in  a  current  of  it, 
might  not  have  his  pores  suddenly  contracted,  his  perspiration 
stopped,  and  that  matter  thrown  into  the  circulation,  or  cast  upon 
the  lungs,  which  he  acknowledged  was  the  cause  of  colds.  To  this 
he  never  could  give  me  a  satisfactory  answer,  and  I  have  heard  that 
in  the  opinion  of  his  own  able  physician,  Dr.  Jones,  he  fell  a  sacrifice 
at  last,  not  to  the  stone,  but  to  his  own  theory,  having  caught  the 
violent  cold  which  finally  choked  him,  by  sitting  for  some  hours  at  a 
window,  with  the  cool  air  blowing  upon  him."  (Adams's  Works, 
vol.  iii.  p.  75.) 

In  some  of  his  letters  Franklin  denied  positively 
that  colds  could  be  taken  by  exposure.  He  got  a 
young  physician  to  experiment  on  the  effect  of 
nakedness  in  increasing  perspiration,  and  when  he 
found,  or  thought  he  had  found,  that  the  perspira 
tion  was  greater  than  when  the  body  was  clothed, 
he  jumped  to  the  conclusion  that  exposure  could  not 
check  perspiration.  In  a  passage  in  his  notes,  how 
ever,  he  seems  to  admit  that  a  sudden  cold  or  a 
draught  might  check  it. 

He  wrote  so  well  and  so  prettily  on  colds  that  people 
began  to  think  he  was  the  discoverer  of  their  causes, 

28 


THE  SUMNER    PORTRAIT   OF    FRANKLIN 


PHYSICAL   CHARACTERISTICS 

and  his  biographer,  Parton,  goes  so  far  as  to  say 
so.  But  upon  inquiry  among  learned  physicians 
I  cannot  find  that  they  recognize  him  as  a  dis 
coverer,  or  that  he  has  any  standing  on  this  ques 
tion  in  medical  history.  It  would  seem  that  he 
merely  collected  and  expressed  the  observations  of 
others  as  well  as  his  own  ;  none  of  them  were  en 
tirely  new,  and  many  of  them  are  now  considered 
unsound. 

Nearer  to  the  truth  is  Parton' s  statement  that  "  he 
was  the  first  effective  preacher  of  the  blessed  gospel 
of  ventilation."  He  certainly  studied  that  subject 
very  carefully,  and  was  an  authority  on  it,  being 
appointed  while  in  England  to  prepare  a  plan  for 
ventilating  the  Houses  of  Parliament  It  would, 
however,  be  better  to  say  that  he  was  one  of  the 
most  prominent  advocates  of  ventilation  rather  than 
the  first  effective  preacher  of  it ;  for  in  Bigelow's 
edition  of  his  works*  will  be  found  an  excellent 
essay  on  the  subject  in  which  the  other  advocates 
are  mentioned.  But  Parton  goes  on  to  say,  "  He 
spoke,  and  the  windows  of  hospitals  were  lowered  ; 
consumption  ceased  to  gasp  and  fever  to  inhale  poi 
son  ;"  which  is  an  extravagant  statement  that  he 
would  find  difficulty,  I  think,  in  supporting. 

In  Franklin's  published  works  there  is  a  short 
essay  called  "  A  Conjecture  as  to  the  Cause  of  the 
Heat  of  the  Blood  in  Health  and  of  the  Cold  and 
Hot  Fits  of  Some  Fevers."  The  blood  is  heated, 
he  says,  by  friction  in  the  action  of  the  heart,  by  the 

*  Vol.  iv.  p.  271. 
29 


THE   TRUE  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

distention  and  contraction  of  the  arteries,  and  by 
being  forced  through  minute  vessels.  This  essay  is 
very  ingenious  and  well  written,  and  the  position 
given  to  it  in  his  works  might  lead  one  to  suppose 
that  it  was  of  importance  ;  but  I  am  informed  by 
physicians  that  it  was  merely  the  revamping  of  an 
ancient  theory  held  long  before  his  time,  and  quite 
without  foundation. 

Franklin's  excursions  into  the  domain  of  medicine 
are  not,  therefore,  to  be  considered  among  his  valua 
ble  contributions  to  the  welfare  of  man,  except  so 
far  as  they  encouraged  him  to  advocate  fresh  air 
and  ventilation,  though  they  may  have  assisted  him 
to  take  better  care  of  his  own  health. 

Of  the  numerous  portraits  of  him  of  varying  merit, 
nearly  all  of  which  have  been  reproduced  over  and 
over  again,  only  a  few  deserve  consideration  for  the 
light  they  throw  on  his  appearance  and  character.  The 
Sumner  portrait,  as  it  used  to  be  called,  is  supposed 
to  have  been  painted  in  London  in  1726,  when  he  was 
there  as  a  young  journeyman  printer,  twenty  years 
old,  and  was  brought  by  him  to  America  and  given 
to  his  brother  John,  of  Rhode  Island.  He  evidently 
dressed  himself  for  this  picture  in  clothes  he  was  not 
in  the  habit  of  wearing  at  his  work  ;  for  he  appears 
in  a  large  wig,  a  long,  decorated  coat  and  waistcoat, 
with  a  mass  of  white  ruffles  on  his  bosom  and  con 
spicuous  wrist-bands.  The  rotund  and  strongly  de 
veloped  figure  is  well  displayed.  Great  firmness  and 
determination  are  shown  in  the  mouth  and  lower  part 
of  the  face.  The  animal  forces  are  evidently  strong. 
The  face  is  somewhat  frank,  and  at  the  same  time 

30 


PHYSICAL   CHARACTERISTICS 

very  shrewd.  The  eyes  are  larger  than  in  the  later 
portraits,  which  is  not  surprising,  for  eyes  are  apt 
to  grow  smaller  in  appearance  with  age. 

This  portrait,  which  is  now  in  Memorial  Hall  at 
Harvard  University,  has  been  supposed  by  some 
critics  not  to  be  a  portrait  of  Franklin  at  all.  How, 
they  ask,  could  Franklin,  who  was  barely  able  to 
earn  his  living  at  that  time,  and  whose  companions 
were  borrowing  a  large  part  of  his  spare  money, 
afford  to  have  an  oil-painting  made  of  himself  in 
such  expensive  costume  ?  and  why  is  there  no  men 
tion  of  this  portrait  in  any  of  his  writings  ?  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  portrait  has  the  peculiar  set  ex 
pression  of  the  mouth  and  the  long  chin  which  were 
so  characteristic  of  Franklin  ;  and  it  would  have  been 
entirely  possible  for  him  to  have  borrowed  the  clothes 
and  had  the  picture  painted  cheaply  or  as  a  kind 
ness.  It  is  not  well  painted,  need  not  have  been 
expensive,  and,  as  there  were  no  photographs  then, 
paintings  were  the  only  way  by  which  people  could 
give  their  likenesses  to  relatives. 

The  Martin  portrait,  painted  when  he  was  about 
sixty  years  old,  represents  him  seated,  his  elbows 
resting  on  a  table,  and  holding  a  document,  which 
he  is  reading  with  deep  but  composed  and  serene 
attention.  It  was  no  doubt  intended  to  represent 
him  in  a  characteristic  attitude.  As  showing  the 
calm  philosopher  and  diplomat  reading  and  think 
ing,  somewhat  idealized  and  yet  a  more  or  less  true 
likeness,  it  is  in  many  respects  the  best  picture  we 
have  of  him.  But  we  cannot  see  the  eyes,  and  it 
does  not  reveal  as  much  character  as  we  could  wish. 

31 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

The  Grundmann  portrait,  an  excellent  photograph 
of  which  hangs  in  the  Philadelphia  Library,  was 
painted  by  a  German  artist,  after  a  careful  study  of 
Franklins  career  and  of  all  the  portraits  of  him 
which  had  been  painted  from  life.  As  an  attempt  to 
reproduce  his  characteristics  and  idealize  them  it 
is  a  distinct  success  and  very  interesting.  He  is 
seated  in  a  chair,  in  his  court-dress,  with  long  stock 
ings  and  knee-breeches,  leaning  back,  his  head  and 
shoulders  bent  forward,  while  his  gaze  is  downward. 
He  is  musing  over  something,  and  there  is  that  char 
acteristic  shrewd  smile  on  the  lower  part  of  the  rugged 
face.  It  is  the  smile  of  a  most  masterful  and  cun 
ning  intellect ;  but  no  one  fears  it :  it  seems  as  harm 
less  as  your  mother's.  You  try  to  imagine  which 
one  of  his  thousand  clever  strokes  and  sayings  was 
passing  through  his  mind  that  day ;  and  the  strong, 
intensely  individualized  figure,  which  resembles  that 
of  an  old  athlete,  is  wonderfully  suggestive  of  life, 
experience,  and  contest 

But  the  Duplessis  portrait,  which  was  painted  from 
life  in  Paris  in  1778,  when  he  was  seventy-two,  re 
veals  more  than  any  of  them.  The  Sumner  portrait 
is  Franklin  the  youth ;  the  Martin  and  the  Grund 
mann  portraits  are  Franklin  the  philosopher  and 
statesman ;  the  Duplessis  portrait  is  Franklin  the 
man. 

Unfortunately,  it  is  impossible  to  get  a  good  repro 
duction  of  the  Duplessis  portrait,  because  there  is  so 
much  detail  in  it  and  the  coloring  and  lights  and 
shadows  cannot  be  successfully  copied.  But  any  one 
who  will  examine  the  original  or  any  good  replicas 

32 


THE    MARTIN    PORTRAIT    OF    FRANKLIN 


PHYSICAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

of  it  in  oil  will,  I  am  convinced,  see  Franklin  as  he 
really  was.  The  care  in  details,  the  wrinkles,  and  the 
color  of  the  skin  give  us  confidence  in  it  as  a  like 
ness.  The  round,  strong,  but  crude  form  of  the 
boy  of  twenty  has  been  beaten  and  changed  by 
time  into  a  hundred  qualities  and  accomplishments, 
yet  the  original  form  is  still  discernible,  and  the  face 
looks  straight  at  us  :  we  see  the  eyes  and  every  line 
close  at  hand. 

In  this,  the  best  portrait  for  studying  Franklin's 
eye,  we  see  at  once  that  it  is  the  eye  of  a  very  sen 
suous  man,  and  we  also  see  many  details  which  mark 
the  self-made  man,  the  man  who  never  had  been  and 
never  pretended  to  be  an  aristocrat.  This  is  in  strong 
contrast  to  Washington's  portraits,  which  all  disclose 
a  man  distinctly  of  the  upper  class  and  conscious 
of  it. 

But,  in  spite  of  this  homeliness  in  the  Duplessis 
portrait  and  the  easy,  careless  manner  in  which  the 
clothes  are  worn,  there  are  no  signs  of  what  might 
be  called  vulgarity.  The  wonderful  and  many-sided 
accomplishments  of  the  man  carried  him  well  above 
this.  Brought  up  as  a  boy  at  candle-  and  soap- 
making,  he  nevertheless,  when  prosperous,  turned 
instinctively  to  higher  things  and  refined  accomplish 
ments  and  was  comparatively  indifferent  to  material 
wealth.  Nor  do  we  find  in  him  any  of  that  bitter 
hostility  and  jealousy  of  the  established  and  success 
ful  which  more  modern  experience  might  lead  us  to 
expect. 

The  Duplessis  portrait  conforms  to  what  we  read 
of  Franklin  in  representing  him  as  hale  and  vigorous 
3  33 


THE   TRUE  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

at  seventy-two.  The  face  is  full  of  lines,  but  they  are 
the  lines  of  thought,  and  of  thought  that  has  come 
easily  and  cheerfully ;  there  are  no  traces  of  anxiety, 
gnawing  care,  or  bitterness.  In  Paris,  at  the  time 
the  Duplessis  portrait  was  painted,  Franklin  was 
regarded  as  a  rather  unusual  example  of  vigor  and 
good  health  in  old  age.  John  Adams  in  his  Diary 
uses  him  as  a  standard,  and  speaks  of  other  old  men 
in  France  as  being  equal  or  almost  equal  to  him  in 
health. 

Although  not  so  free  from  disease  as  were  his 
parents,  he  was  not  much  troubled  with  it  until  late 
in  life.  When  a  young  man  of  about  twenty-one  he 
had  a  bad  attack  of  pleurisy,  of  which  he  nearly  died. 
It  terminated  in  an  abscess  of  the  left  lung,  and  when 
this  broke,  he  was  almost  suffocated  by  the  quantity 
and  suddenness  of  the  discharge.  A  few  years  after 
wards  he  had  a  similar  attack  of  pleurisy,  ending  in 
the  same  way ;  and  it  was  an  abscess  in  his  lung 
which  finally  caused  his  death.  The  two  abscesses 
which  he  had  when  a  young  man  seem  to  have  left 
no  ill  effects  ;  and  after  his  two  attacks  of  pleurisy 
he  was  free  from  serious  sickness  for  many  years, 
until  at  the  age  of  fifty-one  he  went  to  England  to 
represent  the  Province  of  Pennsylvania.  Soon  after 
landing  he  was  attacked  by  an  obscure  fever,  of 
which  he  does  not  give  the  name,  and  which  disabled 
him  for  eight  weeks.  He  was  delirious,  and  they 
cupped  him  and  gave  him  enormous  quantities  of 
bark. 

After  he  had  passed  middle  life  he  found  that  he 
could  not  remain  entirely  well  unless  he  took  a 

34 


THE   GRUNDMANN    IDEAL   PORTRAIT   OF    FRANKLIN 


PHYSICAL   CHARACTERISTICS 

journey  every  year.  During  the  nine  years  of  his 
residence  in  Paris  as  minister  to  France  he  was  unable 
to  take  these  journeys,  and  as  a  consequence  his 
health  rapidly  deteriorated.  He  had  violent  attacks 
which  incapacitated  him  for  weeks,  sometimes  for 
months,  and  at  the  close  of  the  nine  years  he  could 
scarcely  walk  and  could  not  bear  the  jolting  of  a 
carriage. 

In  France  his  diseases  were  first  the  gout  and  after 
wards  the  stone.  He  was  one  of  those  stout,  full- 
blooded  men  who  the  doctors  say  are  peculiarly 
liable  to  gout,  and  his  tendency  to  it  was  evidently 
increased  by  his  very  sedentary  habits.  He  confesses 
this  in  part  of  that  clever  dialogue  which  he  wrote  to 
amuse  the  Parisians  : 

"  MIDNIGHT,  October  22,  1780. 

"  Franklin.— Eh  \  Oh  !  Eh  !  What  have  I  done  to  merit  these 
cruel  sufferings  ? 

"  Gout. — Many  things  ;  you  have  ate  and  drank  too  freeely,  and 
too  much  indulged  those  legs  of  yours  in  their  indolence. 

"  Franklin. — Who  is  it  that  accuses  me  ? 

"  Gout. — It  is  I,  even  I,  the  Gout. 

'''•Franklin. — What !  my  enemy  in  person? 

"  Gout. — No,  not  your  enemy. 

*'  Franklin. — I  repeat  it  ;  my  enemy  ;  for  you  would  not  only  tor 
ment  my  body  to  death,  but  ruin  my  good  name  ;  you  reproach  me 
as  a  glutton  and  a  tippler ;  now  all  the  world,  that  knows  me,  will 
allow  that  I  am  neither  the  one  nor  the  other. 

"  Gout. — The  world  may  think  as  it  pleases;  it  is  always  very 
complaisant  to  itself,  and  sometimes  to  its  friends ;  but  I  very  well 
know  that  the  quantity  of  meat  and  drink  proper  for  a  man,  who 
takes  a  reasonable  degree  of  exercise,  would  be  too  much  for  another, 
who  never  takes  any. 

"Franklin. — I  take — Eh  !  Oh  ! — as  much  exercise — Eh  !— as  I 
can,  Madam  Gout.  You  know  my  sedentary  state,  and  on  that  ac 
count,  it  would  seem,  Madam  Gout,  as  if  you  might  spare  me  a 
little,  seeing  it  is  not  altogether  my  own  fault. 

35' 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

"  Gout. — Not  a  jot ;  your  rhetoric  and  your  politeness  are  thrown 
away ;  your  apology  avails  nothing.  If  your  situation  in  life  is  a 
sedentary  one,  your  amusements,  your  recreations,  at  least,  should 
be  active.  You  ought  to  walk  or  ride ;  or,  if  the  weather  prevents 
that,  play  at  billiards.  But  let  us  examine  your  course  of  life. 
While  the  mornings  are  long,  and  you  have  leisure  to  go  abroad, 
what  do  you  do  ?  Why,  instead  of  gaining  an  appetite  for  breakfast, 
by  salutary  exercise,  you  amuse  yourself  with  books,  pamphlets,  or 
newspapers,  which  commonly  are  not  worth  the  reading.  Yet  you 
eat  an  inordinate  breakfast,  four  dishes  of  tea,  with  cream,  and  one 
or  two  buttered  toasts,  with  slices  of  hung  beef,  which  I  fancy  are 
not  things  the  most  easily  digested.  Immediately  afterward  you  sit 
down  to  write  at  your  desk,  or  converse  with  persons  who  apply  to 
you  on  business.  Thus  the  time  passes  till  one,  without  any  kind 
of  bodily  exercise.  But  all  this  I  could  pardon,  in  regard,  as  you 
say,  to  your  sedentary  condition.  But  what  is  your  practice  after 
dinner?  Walking  in  the  beautiful  garden  of  those  friends,  with 
whom  you  have  dined,  would  be  the  choice  of  men  of  sense  ;  yours 
is  to  be  fixed  down  to  chess,  where  you  are  found  engaged  for  two 
or  three  hours  !  .  .  .  Wrapt  in  the  speculations  of  this  wretched 
game,  you  destroy  your  constitution.  What  can  be  expected  from 
such  a  course  of  living,  but  a  body  replete  with  stagnant  humors, 
ready  to  fall  a  prey  to  all  kinds  of  dangerous  maladies,  if  I,  the 
Gout,  did  not  occasionally  bring  you  relief  by  agitating  those  humors, 
and  so  purifying  or  dissipating  them  ?  .  .  .  But  amidst  my  instruc 
tions,  I  had  almost  forgot  to  administer  my  wholesome  corrections  ; 
so  take  that  twinge, — and  that.  ..." 

He  tried  to  give  himself  exercise  by  walking  up 
and  down  his  room.  In  that  humorous  essay,  "The 
Craven  Street  Gazette,"  in  which  he  describes  the 
doings  of  Mrs.  Stevenson's  household,  where  he  lived 
in  London,  there  is  a  passage  evidently  referring  to 
himself:  "Dr.  Fatsides  made  four  hundred  and  sixty 
turns  in  his  dining-room  as  the  exact  distance  of  a 
visit  to  the  lovely  Lady  Harwell,  whom  he  did  not 
find  at  home ;  so  there  was  no  struggle  for  and  against 
a  kiss,  and  he  sat  down  to  dream  in  the  easy-chair 
that  he  had  it  without  any  trouble." 

36 


PHYSICAL   CHARACTERISTICS 

Some  years  afterwards,  when  he  was  in  Paris,  John 
Adams  upbraided  him  for  not  taking  more  exercise  ; 
but  he  replied,  "  Yes,  I  walk  a  league  every  day  in 
my  chamber.  I  walk  quick,  and  for  an  hour,  so  that 
I  go  a  league  ;  I  make  a  point  of  religion  of  it." 
This  was  not  a  very  good  substitute  for  out-of-door 
exertion.  In  fact,  Franklin's  opinions  on  the  subject 
of  exercise  were  not  wise.  The  test  of  exercise  was, 
he  thought,  the  amount  of  warmth  it  added  to  the 
body,  and  he  inferred,  therefore,  that  walking  must 
be  better  than  riding  on  horseback,  and  he  even 
recommended  walking  up  and  down  stairs.  Walk 
ing,  being  monotonous  and  having  very  little  effect 
on  the  trunk  and  upper  portions  of  the  body,  is 
generally  admitted  to  be  insufficient  for  those  who 
require  much  exercise  ;  while  running  up  and  down 
stairs  would  now  be  considered  positively  injurious. 
But  it  is,  perhaps,  hardly  in  order  to  criticise  the 
methods  of  a  man  who  succeeded  in  living  to  be 
eighty-four  and  who  served  the  public  until  the  last 
year  of  his  life. 

Even  when  he  was  at  his  worst  in  Paris  and  unable 
to  walk,  his  mind  was  as  vigorous  as  ever,  and  he 
looked  well.  Adams,  who  was  determined  to  com 
ment  on  his  neglect  of  exercise,  says  of  him  when  in 
his  crippled  condition,  in  1785,  "but  he  is  strong 
and  eats  freely,  so  that  he  will  soon  have  other  com 
plaints  besides  the  stone  if  he  continues  to  live  as 
entirely  without  exercise  as  he  does  at  present." 
Adams  also  said  that  his  only  chance  for  life  was  a 
sea-voyage. 

Soon  afterwards  Franklin  was  carried  in  a  litter 
37 


THE  TRUE  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

by  easy  journeys  from  Paris  to  the  sea-coast,  and 
crossed  to  Southampton,  England,  to  wait  for  the 
vessel  that  was  to  take  him  to  Philadelphia.  While 
at  Southampton  he  says, — 

"  I  went  at  noon  to  bathe  in  the  Martin  salt  water  hot  bath,  and 
floating  on  my  back,  fell  asleep,  and  slept  near  an  hour  by  my  watch 
without  sinking  or  turning !  a  thing  I  never  did  before  and  should 
hardly  have  thought  possible.  Water  is  the  easiest  bed  that  can  be. " 

It  was  certainly  odd  that  in  his  seventy-ninth 
year  and  enfeebled  by  disease  he  should  renew  his 
youthful  skill  as  a  swimmer  and  justify  to  himself  his 
favorite  theory  that  nakedness  and  water  are  not  the 
causes  of  colds. 

His  opinion  that  occasional  journeys  were  essential 
to  his  health  and  Adams's  opinion  of  the  necessity 
of  a  sea- voyage  were  both  justified  ;  for  when  he 
reached  Philadelphia,  September  14,  1785,  he  could 
walk  the  streets  and  bear  the  motion  of  an  easy  car 
riage.  He  was  almost  immediately  elected  Governor 
of  Pennsylvania,  and  held  the  office  by  successive 
annual  elections  for  three  years.  The  public,  he 
said,  have  "  engrossed  the  prime  of  my  life.  They 
have  eaten  my  flesh,  and  seem  resolved  now  to 
pick  my  bones."  During  the  summer  of  1787  he 
served  as  a  member  of  the  convention  which  framed 
the  national  Constitution,  although  unable  to  stand 
up  long  enough  to  make  a  speech,  all  his  speeches 
being  read  by  his  colleague,  James  Wilson ;  and 
yet  it  was  in  that  convention,  as  we  shall  see,  that 
he  performed  the  most  important  act  of  his  political 
career. 

38 


PHYSICAL   CHARACTERISTICS 

In  December,  1787,  he  had  a  fall  down  the  stone 
steps  of  his  garden,  spraining  his  right  wrist  and 
bringing  on  another  attack  of  the  stone.  But  he 
recovered  in  the  spring ;  and  at  this  period,  and  in 
deed  to  the  end  of  his  life,  his  wonderful  vitality 
bore  up  so  well  against  severe  disease  that  his  mental 
faculties  were  unimpaired,  his  spirits  buoyant,  and 
his  face  fresh  and  serene. 

But  towards  the  end  he  had  to  take  to  his  bed,  and 
the  last  two  or  three  years  of  his  life  were  passed  in 
terrible  pain,  with  occasional  respites  of  a  few  weeks, 
during  which  he  would  return  to  some  of  his  old 
avocations,  writing  letters  or  essays  of  extraordinary 
brightness  and  gayety.  He  wrote  a  long  letter  on 
his  religious  belief  to  President  Stiles  about  five 
weeks  before  his  death,  his  humorous  protest  against 
slavery  two  weeks  later,  and  an  important  letter  to 
Thomas  Jefferson  on  the  Northeast  Boundary  question 
nine  days  before  his  death. 

His  grandchildren  played  around  his  bedside  ; 
friends  and  distinguished  men  called  to  see  him,  and 
went  away  to  write  notes  of  what  they  recollected 
of  his  remarkable  conversation  and  cheerfulness. 
One  of  his  grandchildren,  afterwards  Mrs.  William 
J.  Duane,  was  eight  years  old  during  the  last  year  of 
his  life,  and  she  has  related  that  every  evening  after 
tea  he  insisted  that  she  should  bring  her  Webster's 
spelling-book  and  say  her  lesson  to  him. 

"A  few  days  before  he  died,  he  rose  from  his  bed  and  begged 
that  it  might  be  made  up  for  him  so  that  he  might  die  in  a  decent 
manner.  His  daughter  told  him  that  she  hoped  he  would  recover 
and  live  many  years  longer.  He  calmly  replied,  'I  hope  not.' 

39 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN  • 

Upon  being  advised  to  change  his  position  in  bed,  that  he  might 
breathe  easy,  he  said,  'A  dying  man  can  do  nothing  easy.'" 
(Bigelow's  Franklin  from  his  own  Writings,  vol.  iii.  p.  464.) 

His  physician,  Dr.  Jones,  has  described  his  last 
illness, — 

"  About  sixteen  days  before  his  death  he  was  seized  with  a  fever 
ish  indisposition,  without  any  particular  symptoms  attending  it,  till 
the  third  or  fourth  day,  when  he  complained  of  a  pain  in  the  left 
breast,  which  increased  till  it  became  extremely  acute,  attended 
with  a  cough  and  laborious  breathing.  During  this  state  when  the 
severity  of  his  pains  drew  forth  a  groan  of  complaint,  he  would 
observe — that  he  was  afraid  he  did  not  bear  them  as  he  ought — 
acknowledged  his  grateful  sense  of  the  many  blessings  he  had  re 
ceived  from  that  Supreme  Being,  who  had  raised  him  from  small 
and  low  beginnings  to  such  high  rank  and  consideration  among 
men — and  made  no  doubt  but  his  present  afflictions  were  kindly 
intended  to  wean  him  from  a  world,  in  which  he  was  no  longer  fit 
to  act  the  part  assigned  him.  In  this  frame  of  body  and  mind  he 
continued  till  five  days  before  his  death,  when  his  pain  and  difficulty 
of  breathing  entirely  left  him,  and  his  family  were  flattering  them 
selves  with  the  hopes  of  his  recovery,  when  an  imposthumation, 
[abscess]  which  had  formed  itself  in  his  lungs  suddenly  burst,  and 
discharged  a  great  quantity  of  matter,  which  he  continued  to  throw 
up  while  he  had  sufficient  strength  to  do  it ;  but,  as  that  failed,  the 
organs  of  respiration  became  gradually  oppressed — a  calm  lethargic 
state  succeeded — and,  on  the  lyth  of  April,  1790,  about  eleven 
o'clock  at  night,  he  quietly  expired,  closing  a  long  and  useful  life 
of  eighty- four  years  and  three  months. ' ' 


II 

EDUCATION 

L.SELF-MADE  men  of  eminence  have  been  quite 
numerous  in  America  for  a  hundred  years.  Frank 
lin  was  our  first  hero  of  this  kind,  and  I  am  inclined 
to  think  our  greatest.  The  others  have  achieved 
wealth  or  political  importance  ;  sometimes  both.  But 
Franklin  achieved  not  only  wealth  and  the  reputa 
tion  of  a  diplomatist  and  a  statesman,  but  made  him 
self  a  most  accomplished  scholar,  a  man  of  letters 
of  world-wide  fame,  a  philosopher  of  no  small  im 
portance,  and  as  an  investigator  and  discoverer  in 
science  he  certainly  enlarged  the  domain  of  human 
knowledge. 

His  father,  Josiah  Franklin,  an  industrious  candle- 
maker  in  Boston,  intended  that  his  youngest  son, 
Benjamin,  should  enter  the  ministry  of  the  Puritan 
Church.  With  this  end  in  view  he  sent  him,  when 
eight  years  old,  to  the  Boston  Grammar-School ;  but 
before  a  year  had  expired  he  found  that  the  cost  of 
even  this  slight  schooling  was  too  much  for  the 
slender  means  with  which  he  had  to  provide  for  a 
large  family  of  children.  So  Franklin  went  to 
another  school,  kept  by  one  George  Brownell,  where 
he  stayed  for  about  a  year,  and  then  his  school-days 
were  ended  forever.  He  entered  his  father's  shop  to 
cut  wicks  and  melt  tallow.  During  his  two  years  of 

41 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

schooling  he  had  learned  to  read  and  write,  but 
was  not  very  good  at  arithmetic. 

His  associations  were  all  humble,  but  they  cannot 
be  said  to  have  been  those  of  either  extreme  poverty 
or  ignorance.  At  Ecton,  Northamptonshire,  Eng 
land,  whence  his  father  came,  the  family  had  lived 
for  at  least  three  hundred  years,  and  how  much 
longer  is  not  known.  Several  of  those  in  the  lineal 
line  of  Benjamin  had  been  blacksmiths.  They  were 
plain  people  who,  having  been  always  respectable 
and  lived  long  in  one  neighborhood,  could  trace  their 
ancestry  back  for  several  centuries. 

They  were  unambitious,  contented  with  their  con 
dition,  and  none  of  them  except  Benjamin  ever  rose 
much  above  it,  or  even  seriously  tried  to  rise.  This 
may  not  have  been  from  any  lack  of  mental  ability. 
Franklin's  father  was  a  strong,  active  man,  as  was 
to  be  expected  of  the  descendant  of  a  line  of  black 
smiths.  He  was  intelligent  and  inquiring,  conversed 
well  on  general  subjects,  could  draw  well,  played  the 
violin  and  sang  in  his  home  when  the  day's  work 
was  done,  and  was  respected  by  his  neighbors  as  a 
prudent,  sensible  citizen  whose  advice  was  worth 
obtaining.  It  does  not  appear  that  he  was  studious. 
But  his  brother  Benjamin,  after  whom  our  Franklin 
was  named,  was  interested  in  politics,  collected 
pamphlets,  made  short-hand  notes  of  the  sermons 
he  heard,  and  was  continually  writing  verses. 

This  Uncle  Benjamin,  while  in  England,  took  a 
great  interest  in  the  nephew,  in  America  who  was 
named  after  him,  and  he  sent  verses  to  him  on  all 
sorts  of  subjects.  He  was  unsuccessful  in  business, 

42 


HOUSE    IN    WHICH    FRANKLIN    \VAS    BORN 


EDUCATION 

lost  his  wife  and  all  his  children,  save  one,  and  finally 
came  out  to  America  to  join  the  family  at  Boston. 

Franklin's  mother  was  Abiah  Folger,  the  second 
wife  of  his  father.  She  was  the  daughter  of  Peter 
Folger,  of  Nantucket,  a  surveyor,  who  is  described 
by  Cotton  Mather  as  a  somewhat  learned  man.  He 

J  .—•«•-•>• 

made  himself  familiar  with  some  of  the  Indian 
languages,  and  taught  the  Indians  to  read  and  write. 
He  wrote  verses  of  about  the  same  quality  as  those 
of  Uncle  Benjamin.  One  of  these,  called  "A  Look 
ing  Glass  for  the  Times,"  while  it  is  mere  doggerel, 
shows  that  its  author  was  interested  in  literature. 
He  was  a  man  of  liberal  views  and  opposed  to  the 
persecution  of  the  Quakers  and  Baptists  in  Massa 
chusetts. 

From  this  grandfather  on  his  mother's  side  Frank 
lin  no  doubt  inherited  his  fondness  for  books,  a 
fondness  that  was  reinforced  by  a  similar  tendency 
which,  though  not  very  strong  in  his  father,  evidently 
existed  in  his  father's  family,  as  Uncle  Benjamin's 
verses  show.  These  verses  sent  to  the  boy  Franklin 
and  his  efforts  at  times  to  answer  them  were  an 
encouragement  towards  reading  and  knowledge. 
Franklin's  extremely  liberal  views  may  possibly 
have  had  their  origin  in  his  maternal  grandfather, 
Peter  Folger. 

But  independently  of  these  suppositions  as  regards 
heredity,  we  find  Franklin  at  twelve  years  of  age 
reading  everything  he  could  lay  his  hands  on.  His 
first  book  was  Bunyan's  "  Pilgrim's  Progress,"  which 
would  not  interest  boys  nowadays,  and  scarcely  in 
terests  mature  people  any  more  ;  but  there  were  no 

43 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

novels  then  and  no  story-books  for  boys.  "  Pil 
grim's  Progress"  is  a  prose  story  with  dialogues  be 
tween  the  characters,  the  first  instance  of  this  sort  of 
writing  in  English,  and  sufficient  to  fascinate  a  boy 
when  there  was  nothing  better  in  the  world. 

He  liked  it  so  well  that  he  bought  the  rest  of  Bun- 
yan's  works,  but  soon  sold  them  to  procure  Burton's 
Historical  Collections,  which  were  forty  small  chap 
men's  books,  full  of  travels,  adventures,  history,  and 
descriptions  of  animals,  well  calculated  to  stimulate 
the  interest  of  a  bright  lad.  Among  his  father's 
theological  books  was  Plutarch's  "  Lives,"  which 
young  Franklin  read  eagerly,  also  De  Foe's  "Essay 
upon  Projects,"  and  Cotton  Mather's  "Essays  to  do 
Good,"  which  he  said  had  an  important  influence  on 
his  character. 

He  so  hated  cutting  wicks  and  melting  tallow  that, 
like  many  other  boys  of  his  time,  he  wanted  to  run 
away  to  sea ;  and  his  father,  to  check  this  inclination 
and  settle  him,  compelled  him  to  sigrrarticles  of  ap 
prenticeship  with  his  brother-James,  who  was  a  printer. 
The  child's  taste  for  books,  the  father  thought,  fitted 
him  to  be  a  printer,  which  would  be  a^m 
ble  occupation  than  the*  ministry,  for  which  he 
at  first  intended. 

So  Franklin  was  bound  by  law  to  serve  his  brother 
until  he  was  twenty-one.  He  learned  the  business 
quickly,  stealing  time  to  read  books,  which  he  some 
times  persuaded  booksellers'  apprentices  to  take  from 
their  masters'  shops  in  the  evening.  He  would  sit  up 
nearly  all  night  to  read  them,  so  that  they  might  be  re 
turned  early  in  the  morning  before  they  were  missed. 

44 


EDUCATION 

He  wrote  ballads,  like  his  uncle  Benjamin  and  his 
grandfather  Peter  Folger,  on  popular  events, — the 
drowning  of  a  Captain  Worthilake,  and  the  pirate 
Blackbeard, — and,  after  his  brother  had  printed  them, 
sold  them  in  the  streets.  His  biographer,  Weems, 
quotes  one  of  these  verses,  which  he  declares  he  had 
seen  and  remembered,  and  I  give  it  with  the  quali 
fication  that  it  comes  from  Weems  : 

"Come  all  you  jolly  sailors, 

You  all,  so  stout  and  brave  ; 
Come  hearken  and  I'll  tell  you 
What  happened  on  the  wave. 

"  Oh  !  'tis  of  that  bloody  Blackbeard 

I'm  going  now  for  to  tell ; 

And  as  how  by  gallant  Maynard 

He  soon  was  sent  to  hell — 

With  a  down,  down,  down,  derry  down." 

His  father  ridiculed  these  verses,  in  spite  of  their 
successful  sale,  and  dissuaded  him  from  any  more 
attempts  ;  but  Franklin  remained  more  or  less  of  a 
verse-writer  to  the  end  of  his  life.  Verse-writing 
trained  him  to  write  good  prose,  and  this  accom 
plishment  contributed,  he  thought,  more  than  any 
thing  else  to  his  advancement. 

He  had  an  intimate  friend,  John  Collins,  like 
wise  inclined  to  books,  and  the  two  argued  and  dis 
puted  with  each  other.  Franklin  was  fond  of  wordy 
contention  at  that  time,  and  it  was  possibly  a  good 
mental  training  for  him.  He  had  caught  it,  he  says, 
from  reading  his  father's  books  of  religious  contro 
versy.  But  in  after-years  he  became  convinced  that 
this  disputatious  turn  was  a  very  bad  habit,  which 

45 


OF   'l  i| 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

made  one  extremely  disagreeable  and  alienated 
friends  ;  he  therefore  adopted  during  most  of  his  life 
a  method  of  cautious  modesty. 

He  once  disputed  with  Collins  on  the  propriety  of 
educating  women  and  on  their  ability  for  study.  He 
took  the  side  of  the  women,  and,  feeling  himself 
worsted  by  Collins,  who  had  a  more  fluent  tongue,  he 
reduced  his  arguments  to  writing  and  sent  them  to 
him.  A  correspondence  followed,  and  Franklin's 
father,  happening  to  find  the  papers,  pointed  out  to 
his  son  the  great  advantage  Collins  had  in  clearness 
and  elegance  of  expression.  A  hint  is  all  that  genius 
requires,  and  Franklin  went  resolutely  to  work  to 
improve  himself. 

<*  About  this  time  I  met  with  an  odd  volume  of  the  Spectator.  It 
was  the  third.  I  had  never  before  seen  any  of  them.  I  bought  it, 
read  it  over  and  over,  and  was  much  delighted  with  it.  I  thought 
the  writing  excellent,  and  wished,  if  possible,  to  imitate  it.  With 
this  view  I  took  some  of  the  papers,  and,  making  short  hints  of  the 
sentiment  in  each  sentence,  laid  them  by  a  few  days,  and  then, 
without  looking  at  the  book,  try'd  to  compleat  the  papers  again,  by 
expressing  each  hinted  sentiment  at  length,  and  as  fully  as  it  had 
been  expressed  before,  in  any  suitable  words  that  should  come  to 
hand.  Then  I  compared  my  Spectator  with  the  original,  discovered 
some  of  my  faults,  and  corrected  them.  But  I  found  I  wanted  a 
stock  of  words,  or  a  readiness  in  recollecting  and  using  them,  which 
I  thought  I  should  have  acquired  before  that  time  if  I  had  gone  on 
making  verses  ;  since  the  continual  occasion  for  words  of  the  same 
import,  but  of  different  length,  to  suit  the  measure,  or  of  different 
sound  for  the  rhyme,  would  have  laid  me  under  a  constant  necessity 
of  searching  for  variety,  and  also  have  tended  to  fix  that  variety  in 
my  mind,  and  make  me  master  of  it.  Therefore  I  took  some  of  the 
tales  and  turned  them  into  verse  ;  and,  after  a  time,  when  I  had 
pretty  well  forgotten  the  prose,  turned  them  back  again.  I  also 
sometimes  jumbled  my  collections  of  hints  into  confusion,  and  after 
some  weeks  endeavored  to  reduce  them  into  the  best  order,  before  I 

46 


EDUCATION 

began  to  form  the  full  sentences  and  compleat  the  paper.  This  wai> 
to  teach  me  method  in  the  arrangement  of  thoughts.  By  comparing 
my  work  afterwards  with  the  original,  I  discovered  many  faults  and 
amended  them  ;  but  I  sometimes  had  the  pleasure  of  fancying  that, 
in  certain  particulars  of  small  import,  I  had  been  lucky  enough  to 
improve  the  method  or  the  language,  and  this  encouraged  me  to 
think  I  might  possibly  in  time  come  to  be  a  tolerable  English  writer, 
of  which  I  was  extremely  ambitious. ' '  • 

*     • 

In  some  respects  this  *  the  most  interesting  pas 
sage  in  all  of  Franklin's  writings.  It  was  this  severe 
training  of  himself  which  gave  him  that  wonderful 
facility  in  the  use  of  English  that  made  him  a  great 
man.  Without  it  he  would  have  been  second-rate  or 
ordinary.  His  method  of  improving  his  style  served 
also  as  a  discipline  in  thought  and  logic  such  as  is  sel 
dom,  if  ever,  given  nowadays  in  any  school  or  college. 

Many  of  those  who  have  reflected  deeply  on  the 
subject  of  college  education  have  declared  that  its 
ultimate  object  shoitld  be  to  give  in  the  highest 
Hep-rpe  the  ppAyer  of  expression.  Some  have  said 
that:  a  sytse  o^*  honor  and  the  power  Off  expression 
should  be  its  objects.  But  there  are  few  who  will 
dispute  the  proposition  that  a  collegian  who  receives 
his  diploma  without  receding  with  it  more  of  the  »u£ 
ofexprggsjan  than  most  men  possess  has  spent  his 
time  and  his  money  in  vain.  ' 

During  the  last  thirty  years  we  have  been  trying 
every  conceivable  experiment  in  college  education, 
many  of  them  mere  imitations  from  abroad  and 
many  of  them  mere  suggestions,  suppositions,  or 
Utopian  theories.  When  we  began  these  experiments 
it  was  taken  for  granted  that  the  old  methods,  which 
had  produced  in  this  country  such  scholars,  writers, 

47 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

and  thinkers  as  Lowell,  Longfellow,  Holmes,  Haw 
thorne,  Webster,  Prescott,  Motley,  Bancroft,  Everett, 
Phillips,  Channing,  Parker,  and  Parkman,  and  in  Eng 
land  a  host  too  numerous  to  name,  must  necessarily 
be  wrong.  We  began  to  imitate  Germany.  It  was 
assumed  that  if^we  transplanted  the  German  system 
we  should  b^gift  to  grind  out  Mommsens  and  Bun- 
sens  by  the  yard,  like  a  cotton-mill ;  and  that  if  we 
added  to  the  German  system  every  plausible  sug 
gestion  of  our  own  for  making  things  easy,  the  result 
would  be  a  stupendous  success. 

But  how  many  men  have  we  produced  who  can  be 

compared  with  the  men  of  the  old  system  ?    Not  one. 

The  experiment,  except  so  far  as  it  has  given  a  large 

number  of  people  a  great  deal  of  pretty  information 

about  history  and  the  fine  arts,  is  a  vast  failure.     After 

thirty  years  of  effort  we  have  just  discovered  that  the 

boys  whose  nerves  and  eyesight  are  being  worn  out 

under  our  wonderful  system  cannot,  write  a  decent 

letter  in  the  Englis.h  language  ^and, a,  committee  of 

I  Harvard  University  have  spent  months  of  labor  and 

I  issued   a  voluminous   report  of  hundreds   of  pages 

!  -on*  this  mortifying  discoveiy,  leaving  it  as  perplexing 

.   and  humiliating  as  they  found  it. 

Remedies  are  proposed.  We  have  made  a  mis 
take,  say  some,  and  they  suggest  that  for  a  change 
we  adopt  the  English  University  system.  After  par 
tially  abolishing  Latin  and  Greek  we  were  to  have 
in  place  of  them  a  great  deal  of  history  and  mathe 
matics,  which  were  more  practical,  it  was  said  ;  but 
now  we  are  informed  that  this  also  was  a  mistake,  and 
a  movement  is  on  foot  to  abolish  history  and  algebra. 


EDUCATION 

Others  suggest  the  French  system,  and  one  individual 
writes  a  long  article  for  the  newspapers  proving 
beyond  the  possibility  of  a  doubt  that  French  edu 
cation  is  just  the  thing  we  need.  Always  imitating 
something ;  always  trying  to  bring  in  the  foreign  and 
distant.  And  until  we  stop  this  vulgar  provincial 
snobbery  and  believe  in  ourselves  and  learn  to  do 
our  own  work  with  our  own  people  in  our  own  way, 
we  shall  continue  to  flounder  and  fail. 

Let  us  distinguish  clearly  between  information  and 
education.  If  it  is  necessary,  especially  in  these 
times,  to  give  people  information  on  various  subjects, 
— on  science,  history,  art,  bric-a-brac,  or  mud  pies, — 
very  good  ;  let  it  be  done  by  all  means,  for  it  seems 
to  have  a  refining  influence  on  the  masses.  But  do 
not  call  it  education.  Education  is  teaching  a  per 
son  to  do  something  with  his  mind  or  his  muscles  or 
with  both.  It  involves  training,  discipline,  drill ;  things 
which,  as  a  rule,  are  very  unpleasant  to  young  peo 
ple,  and  which,  unless  they  are  geniuses,  like  Frank 
lin,  they  will  not  take  up  of  their  own  accord. 

You  can  never  teach  a  boy  to  write  good  English 
by  having  him  read  elegant  extracts  from  distin 
guished  authors,  or  by  making  him  wade  through 
endless  text-books  of  anatomy,  physics,  botany,  his 
tory,  and  philosophy,  or  by  giving  him  a  glib 
knowledge  of  French  or  German,  or  by  perfunctory 
translations  of  Latin  and  Greek  prepared  in  the  new- 
fashioned,  easy  way,  without  a  grammar. 

(The   old    English   method,    by  which    boys  were 
compelled  to  write  Latin  verses,  was  simply  another 
form  of  Franklin's  method,  but  rather  more  severe  in 
4  49 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

some  respects,  because  the  boy  was  compelled  to  dis 
cipline  his  versifying  power  and  hunt  for  and  use 
words  in  two  languages  at  once.  The  result  was 
some  of  the  greatest  masters  of  language  that  the 
world  has  ever  known,  and  the  ordinary  boy,  though 
perhaps  not  a  'wonder  in  all  the  sciences,  did  not 
have  a  learned  committee  of  a  university  investi 
gating  his  disgraceful  failure  to  use  his  native  tongue. 
His  mind,  moreover,  had  been  so  disciplined  by  the 
severe  training  in  the  use  of  language — which  is  only 
another  name  for  thought — that  he  was  capable  of 
taking  up  and  mastering  with  ease  any  subject  in 
science  or  philosophy,  and  could  make  as  good  mud 
pies  and  judge  as  well  of  bric-a-brac  as  those  who 
had  never  done  anything  else. 

In  this  country  people  object  to  compelling  boys 
to  write  verse,  because,  as  they  say,  it  is  an  endeavor 
to  force  them  to  become  poets  whether  they  have 
talent  for  it  or  not.  Any  one  who  reflects,  however, 
knows  that  there  is  no  question  of  poetry  in  the 
matter.  It  is  merely  a  question  of  technical  versi 
fying  and  use  of  language.  Franklin  never  wrote 
a  line  of  poetry  in  his  life,  but  he  wrote  hundreds 
of  lines  of  verse,  to  the  great  improvement  of  the 
faculty  which  made  him  the  man  he  was. 

When  he  voluntarily  subjected  himself  to  a  mental 
discipline  which  modern  parents  would  consider  cruel 
he  was  only  fifteen  years  old  ;  certainly  a  rather  un 
usual  precocity,  from  which  some  people  would 
prophesy  a  dwarfed  career  or  an  early  death.  But  he 
did  some  of  his  best  work  after  he  was  eighty,  and 
died  at  the  age  of  eighty-four. 

So 


EDUCATION 

He  lived  in  the  little  village  of  Boston  nearly  two 
hundred  years  ago,  the  wholesome  wilderness  on  one 
side  of  him  and  the  wholesome  ocean  on  the  other. 
He  worked  with  his  strong  arms  and  hands  all  day, 
and  the  mental  discipline  and  reading  were  stolen 
sweets  at  the  dinner-hour,  at  night,  and  on  Sunday, — 
for  he  neglected  church-going  for  the  sake  of  his 
studies.  Could  he  have  budded  and  grown  amid 
our  distraction,  dust,  and  disquietude?  and  have  we 
any  more  of  the  elements  of  happiness  than  he  ? 

Ashamed  of  his  failure  to  learn  arithmetic  during 
his  two  short  years  at  school,  he  procured  a  book  on 
the  subject  and  studied  it  by  himself.  In  the  same 
way  he  studied  navigation  and  a  little  geometry. 
When  scarcely  seventeen  he  read  Locke's  "  Essay 
on  the  Human  Understanding"  and  "The  Art  of 
Thinking,"  by  Messieurs  du  Port- Royal. 

' '  While  I  was  intent  on  improving  my  language  I  met  with  an 
English  grammar  (I  think  it  was  Greenwood's)  at  the  end  of  which 
there  were  two  little  sketches  of  the  arts  of  rhetoric  and  logic,  the 
latter  finishing  with  a  specimen  of  a  dispute  in  the  Socratic  method ; 
and  soon  after  I  procured  Xenophon's  memorable  things  of  Socrates, 
wherein  there  are  many  instances  of  the  same  method.  I  was 
charmed  with  it,  adopted  it,  dropt  my  abrupt  contradiction  and  posi 
tive  argumentation,  and  put  on  the  humble  inquirer  and  doubter. ' ' 

It  was  very  shrewd  of  the  boy  to  see  so  quickly 
the  strategic  advantage  of  the  humbler  method.  It 
was  also  significant  of  genius  that  he  should  of  his 
own  accord  not  only  train  and  discipline  himself,  but 
feed  his  mind  on  the  great  masters  of  literature  in 
stead  of  on  trash.  He  could  hardly  have  done  any 
better  at  school,  for  he  was  gifted  with  unusual 


THE  TRUE  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

power  of  self-education.  Boys  are  occasionally  met 
with  who  have  by  their  own  efforts  acquired  a  suf 
ficient  education  to  obtain  a  good  livelihood  or  even 
to  become  rich  ;  but  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  an 
other  instance  of  a  boy  with  only  two  years'  school 
ing  self-educating  himself  up  to  the  ability  not  only 
of  making  a  fortune,  but  of  becoming  a  man  of  let 
ters,  a  man  of  science,  a  philosopher,  a  diplomat, 
and  a  statesman  of  such  very  distinguished  rank. 

There  was  no  danger  of  his  inclination  for  the 
higher  departments  of  learning  making  him  visionary 
or  impractical,  as  is  so  often  the  case  with  the  modern 
collegian.  He  was  of  necessity  always  in  close  con 
tact  with  actual  life.  His  brother,  in  whose  printing- 
office  he  worked  as  an  apprentice,  was  continually 
beating  him  ;  perhaps  not  without  reason,  for  Frank 
lin  himself  admits  that  he  was  rather  saucy  and  pro 
voking.  He  was,  it  seems,  at  this  period  not  a  little 
vain  of  his  learning  and  his  skill  as  a  workman.  He 
had  been  writing  important  articles  for  his  brother's 
newspaper,  and  he  thought  that  his  brother  failed  to 
appreciate  his  importance.  They  soon  quarrelled, 
and  Franklin  ran  away  to  New  York. 

He  went  secretly  on  board  a  sloop  at  Boston, 
having  sold  some  of  his  books  to  raise  the  passage- 
money  ;  and  after  a  three  days'  voyage,  which  com 
pletely  cured  his  desire  for  the  sea,  he  found  himself 
in  a  strange  town,  several  hundred  miles  from  home. 
He  applied  for  work  to  old  Mr.  William  Bradford, 
the  famous  printer  of  the  colonies,  who  had  recently 
removed  from  Philadelphia.  But  he  had  no  position 
to  give  the  boy,  and  recommended  him  to  go  to 

52 


EDUCATION 

Philadelphia,  where  his  son  kept  a  printing-office  and 
needed  a  hand. 

Franklin  started  for  Amboy,  New  Jersey,  in  a 
sloop ;  but  in  crossing  the  bay  they  were  struck  by  a 
squall,  which  tore  their  rotten  sails  to  pieces  and 
drove  them  on  Long  Island.  They  saved  them 
selves  from  wreck  on  the  beach  by  anchoring  just 
in  time,  and  lay  thus  the  rest  of  the  day  and  the 
following  night,  soaked  to  the  skin  and  without  food 
or  sleep.  They  reached  Amboy  the  next  day,  having 
had  nothing  to  eat  for  thirty  hours,  and  in  the 
evening  Franklin  found  himself  in  a  fever. 

He  had  heard  that  drinking  plentifully  of  cold 
water  was  a  good  remedy;  so  he  tried  it,  went  to 
bed,  and  woke  up  well  the  next  morning.  But  it 
was  probably  his  boyish  elasticity  that  cured  him, 
and  not  the  cold  water,  as  he  would  have  us  believe. 

He  started  on  foot  for  Burlington,  a  distance  of 
fifty  miles,  and  tramped  till  noon  through  a  hard 
rain,  when  he  halted  at  an  inn,  and  wished  that 
he  had  never  left  home.  He  was  a  sorry  figure, 
and  people  began  to  suspect  him  to  be  a  runaway 
servant,  which  in  truth  he  was.  But  the  next  day  he 
got  within  eight  miles  of  Burlington,  and  stopped 
at  a  tavern  kept  by  a  Dr.  Brown,  an  eccentric  man, 
who,  finding  that  the  boy  had  read  serious  books, 
was  very  friendly  with  him,  and  the  two  continued 
their  acquaintance  as  long  as  the  tavern-keeper  lived. 

Reaching  Burlington  on  Saturday,  he  lodged  with 
an  old  woman,  who  sold  him  some  gingerbread  and 
gave  him  a  dinner  of  ox-cheek,  to  which  he  added 
a  pot  of  ale.  His  intention  had  been  to  stay  until 

53 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

the  following  Tuesday,  but  he  found  a  boat  going 
down  the  river  that  evening,  which  brought  him  to 
Philadelphia  on  Sunday  morning. 

He  walked  up  Market  Street  from  the  wharf,  dirty, 
his  pockets  stuffed  with  shirts  and  stockings,  and 
carrying  three  great  puffy  rolls,  one  under  each  arm 
and  eating  the  third.  Passing  by  the  house  of  a  Mrs. 
Read,  her  daughter,  standing  at  the  door,  saw  the 
ridiculous,  awkward-looking  boy,  and  was  much 
amused.  But  he  continued  strolling  along  the 
streets,  eating  his  roll  and  calmly  surveying  the  town 
where  he  was  to  become  so  eminent.  One  roll  was 
enough  for  his  appetite,  and  the  other  two,  with  a 
boy's  sincere  generosity,  he  gave  to  a  woman  and 
her  child.  He  had  insisted  on  paying  for  his  pas 
sage,  although  the  boatman  was  willing  to  let  him 
off  because  he  had  assisted  to  row.  A  man,  Frank 
lin  sagely  remarks,  is  sometimes  more  generous  when 
he  has  but  little  money  through  fear  of  being  thought 
to  have  but  little. 

He  wandered  into  a  Quaker  meeting-house  and,  as 
it  was  a  silent  meeting,  fell  fast  asleep.  Aroused  by 
some  one  when  the  meeting  broke  up,  he  sought 
the  river  again,  and  was  shown  the  Crooked  Billet 
Inn,  where  he  spent  the  afternoon  sleeping,  and  im 
mediately  after  supper  went  sound  asleep  again,  and 
never  woke  till  morning. 

The  next  day  he  succeeded  in  obtaining  work 
with  a  printer  named  Keimer,  a  man  who  had  been 
a  religious  fanatic  and  was  a  good  deal  of  a  knave  ; 
and  this  Keimer  obtained  lodging  for  him  at  the 
Jiouse  of  Mrs.  Read,  whose  daughter  had  seen  him 

54 


EDUCATION 

walking  up  Market  Street  eating  his  roll.  Well 
lodged,  at  work,  and  with  a  little  money  to  spend, 
he  lived  agreeably,  he  tells  us,  in  Philadelphia,  made 
the  acquaintance  of  young  men  who  were  fond  of 
reading,  and  very  soon  his  brother-in-law,  Robert 
Holmes,  master  of  a  sloop  that  traded  between  Bos 
ton  and  the  Delaware  River,  heard  that  the  runaway 
was  in  Philadelphia. 

Holmes  wrote  from  New  Castle,  Delaware,  to  the 
boy,  assuring  him  of  the  regret  of  his  family  at  his 
absconding,  of  their  continued  good  will,  and  urging 
him  to  return.  Franklin  replied,  giving  his  side  of 
the  story,  and  Holmes  showed  the  letter  to  Sir  Wil 
liam  Keith,  Governor  of  Pennsylvania  and  Delaware, 
who  happened  to  be  at  New  Castle. 

Keith  was  one  of  the  most  popular  colonial  gov 
ernors  that  Pennsylvania  ever  had,  and  enjoyed  a 
successful  administration  of  ten  years,  which  might 
have  lasted  much  longer  but  for  his  reckless  ambition. 
He  had  allowed  himself  to  fall  into  habits  of  extrava 
gance  and  debt,  and  had  a  way  of  building  up  his 
popularity  by  making  profuse  promises,  most  of  which 
he  could  not  keep.  Chicanery  finally  became  an 
habitual  vice  which  he  was  totally  unable  to  restrain, 
and  he  would  indulge  in  it  without  the  slightest  rea 
son  or  excuse. 

He  was  surprised  at  the  ability  shown  in  Frank 
lin's  letter,  declared  that  he  must  be  set  up  in  the 
printing  business  in  Philadelphia,  where  a  good 
printer  was  sadly  needed,  and  promised  to  procure 
for  him  the  public  printing.  A  few  days  afterwards 
Franklin  and  Keimer,  working  near  the  window,  were 

55 


THE  TRUE  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

very  much  surprised  to  see  the  governor  and  Colo 
nel  French,  of  New  Castle,  dressed  in  all  the  finery 
of  the  time,  walking  across  the  street  to  their  shop. 
Keimer  thought  that  the  visit  was  to  him,  and  ' '  stared 
like  a  poisoned  pig,"  Franklin  tells  us,  when  he  saw 
the  governor  addressing  his  workman  with  all  the 
blandishments  of  courtly  flattery.  "Why,"  exclaimed 
the  unscrupulous  Keith,  "  did  you  not  come  to  me 
immediately  on  your  arrival  in  the  town  ?  It  was 
unkind  not  to  do  so."  He  insisted  that  the  boy 
should  accompany  him  to  the  tavern,  where  he  and 
Colonel  French  were  going  to  try  some  excellent 
Madeira. 

At  the  tavern  the  boy's  future  life  was  laid  out 
for  him.  The  governor  and  Colonel  French  would 
give  him  the  public  printing  of  both  Pennsylvania 
and  Delaware.  Meantime  he  was  to  go  back  to 
Boston,  see  his  father,  and  procure  his  assistance  in 
starting  in  business.  The  father  would  not  refuse, 
for  Sir  William  would  write  him  a  letter  which  would 
put.  everything  right  So  Franklin,  completely  de 
ceived,  agreed,  and,  until  a  ship  could  be  found  that 
was  going  to  Boston,  he  dined  occasionally  with  the 
governor,  and  became  very  much  inflated  with  a 
sense  of  his  own  importance. 

Arrived  at  Boston,  he  strolled  into  his  brother's 
printing-office,  dressed  in  beautiful  clothes,  with  a 
watch,  and  jingling  five  pounds  sterling  in  silver  in 
his  pockets.  He  drew  out  a  handful  of  the  silver 
and  spread  it  before  the  workmen,  to  their  great  sur 
prise,  for  at  that  time  Massachusetts  was  afflicted 
with  a  paper  currency.  Then,  with  consummate  im- 

56 


EDUCATION 

pudence  and  in  his  brother's  presence,  he  gave  the 
men  a  piece  of  eight  to  buy  drink,  and,  after  telling 
them  what  a  good  place  Philadelphia  was,  swaggered 
out  of  the  shop.  It  is  not  surprising  that  his  brother 
turned  away  from  him  and  refused  to  forgive  or  for 
get  his  conduct. 

His  father,  being  a  man  of  sense,  flatly  refused  to 
furnish  money  to  start  a  boy  of  eighteen  in  an  ex 
pensive  business,  and  was  curious  to  know  what  sort 
of  man  Governor  Keith  was,  to  recommend  such  a 
thing.  So  Franklin,  with  his  conceit  only  slightly 
reduced,  returned  to  Philadelphia,  but  this  time  with 
the  blessing  and  consent  of  his  parents. 

He  stopped  in  Rhode  Island  on  his  way,  to  visit 
his  brother  John,  who  had  quite  an  affection  for  him, 
and  while  there  was  asked  by  a  Mr.  Vernon  to  col 
lect  thirty-five  pounds  due  him  in  Pennsylvania,  and 
was  given  an  order  for  the  money.  On  the  vessel 
from  Newport  to  New  York  were  two  women  of  the 
town,  with  whom  Franklin,  in  his  ignorance  of  the 
world,  talked  familiarly,  until  warned  by  a  matronly 
Quaker  lady.  When  the  vessel  reached  New  York, 
the  women  robbed  the  captain  and  were  arrested. 

His  education  in  worldly  matters  was  now  to  be 
gin  in  earnest.  His  friend  Collins  accompanied  him 
to  Philadelphia  ;  but  Collins  had  taken  to  drink  and 
gambling,  and  from  this  time  on  was  continually  bor 
rowing  money  of  Franklin.  The  Governor  of  New 
York,  son  of  the  famous  Bishop  Burnet,  hearing  from 
the  captain  that  a  plain  young  man  who  was  fond  of 
books  had  arrived,  sent  for  him,  flattered  him,  and 
added  to  his  increasing  conceit.  The  boy  who  within 

57 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

a  year  had  been  made  so  much  of  by  two  governors 
was  on  the  brink  of  ruin. 

On  his  journey  to  Philadelphia  he  collected  the 
money  due  Mr.  Vernon,  and  used  part  of  it  to  pay 
the  expenses  of  Collins  and  himself.  Collins  kept 
borrowing  Mr.  Vernon' s  money  from  him,  and  Frank 
lin  was  soon  in  the  position  of  an  embezzler. 

Governor  Keith  laughed  at  the  prudence  of  his 
father  in  refusing  to  set  up  in  business  such  a  prom 
ising  young  man.  "  I  will  do  it  myself,"  he  said. 
"  Give  me  an  inventory  of  the  things  necessary  to  be 
had  from  England,  and  I  will  send  for  them.  You 
shall  repay  me  when  you  are  able." 

Thinking  him  the  best  man  that  had  ever  lived, 
Franklin  brought  him  the  inventory. 

"But  now,"  said  Keith,  "if  you  were  on  the  spot 
in  England  to  choose  the  types  and  see  that  every 
thing  was  good,  might  not  that  be  of  some  advan 
tage  ?  And  then  you  may  make  acquaintances  there 
and  establish  correspondences  in  the  bookselling  and 
stationery  way." 

Of  course  that  was  delightful. 

"Then,"  said  Keith,  "get  yourself  ready  to  go 
with  Annis,"  who  was  captain  of  a  vessel  that  traded 
annually  between  Philadelphia  and  London. 

Meantime,  Franklin  made  love  to  Miss  Read,  who 
had  seen  him  parading  up  Market  Street  with  his 
rolls,  and,  if  we  may  trust  a  man's  account  of  such 
matters,  he  succeeded  in  winning  her  affections.  He 
had  lost  all  faith  in  religion,  and  his  example  un 
settled  those  friends  who  associated  and  read  books 
with  him.  He  was  at  times  invited  to  dine  with  the 

58 


EDUCATION 

governor,  who  promised  to  give  him  letters  of  credit 
for  money  and  also  letters  recommending  him  to  his 
friends  in  England. 

He  called  at  different  times  for  these  letters,  but 
they  were  not  ready.  The  day  of  the  ship's  sailing 
came,  and  he  called  to  take  leave  of  his  great  and 
good  friend  and  to  get  the  letters.  The  governor's 
secretary  said  that  his  master  was  extremely  busy,  but 
would  meet  the  ship  at  New  Castle,  and  the  letters 
would  be  delivered. 

The  ship  sailed  from  Philadelphia  with  Franklin 
and  one  of  his  friends,  Ralph,  who  was  going  to 
England,  ostensibly  on  business,  but  really  to  desert 
his  wife  and  child,  whom  he  left  in  Philadelphia. 
While  the  vessel  was  anchored  off  New  Castle,  Frank 
lin  went  ashore  to  see  Keith,  and  was  again  informed 
that  he  was  very  busy,  but  that  the  letters  would  be 
sent  on  board. 

The  despatches  of  the  governor  were  brought  on 
board  in  due  form  by  Colonel  French,  and  Franklin 
asked  for  those  which  were  to  be  under  his  care. 
But  the  captain  said  that  they  were  all  in  the  bag 
together,  and  before  he  reached  England  he  would 
have  an  opportunity  to  pick  them  out  Arrived  in 
London  after  a  long,  tempestuous  voyage,  Franklin 
found  that  there  were  no  letters  for  him  and  no 
money.  On  consulting  with  a  Quaker  merchant, 
Mr.  Denham,  who  had  been  friendly  to  him  on  the 
ship,  he  was  told  that  there  was  not  the  slightest 
probability  of  Keith's  having  written  such  letters  ; 
and  Denham  laughed  at  Keith's  giving  a  letter  of 
credit,  having,  as  he  said,  no  credit  to  give. 

59 


THE   TRUE  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

Franklin  was  stranded,  alone  and  almost  penniless, 
in  London.  When  seven  years  old  he  had  been 
given  pennies  on  a  holiday  and  foolishly  gave  them 
all  to  another  boy  in  exchange  for  a  whistle  which 
pleased  his  fancy.  Mortified  by  the  ridicule  of  his 
brothers  and  sisters,  he  afterwards  made  a  motto  for 
himself,  "  Don't  give  too  much  for  the  whistle."  More 
than  fifty  years  afterwards,  when  minister  to  France, 
he  turned  the  whistle  story  into  a  little  essay  which 
delighted  all  Paris,  and  ''Don't  give  too  much  for 
the  whistle"  became  a  cant  saying  in  both  Europe 
and  America.  He  seldom  forgot  a  lesson  of  expe 
rience  ;  and,  though  he  says  but  little  about  it,  the 
Keith  episode,  like  the  expensive  whistle,  must  have 
made  a  deep  impression  on  him  and  sharpened  his 
wits. 

His  life  in  London  may  be  said  to  have  been  a 
rather  evil  one.  He  forgot  Miss  Read ;  his  com 
panion,  Ralph,  forgot  the  wife  and  child  he  had  left 
in  Philadelphia,  and  kept  borrowing  money  from 
him,  as  Collins  had  done.  Franklin  wrote  a  small 
pamphlet  about  this  time,  which  he  printed  for  him 
self  and  called  "  A  Dissertation  on  Liberty  and 
Necessity,  Pleasure  and  Pain."  It  was  an  argument 
in  favor  of  fatalism,  and  while  acknowledging  the 
existence  of  God,  it  denied  the  immortality  of  the 
soul;  suggesting,  however,  as  a  possibility,  that  there 
might  be  a  transmigration  of  souls.  It  was  a  clever 
performance  in  its  way,  with  much  of  the  power  of 
expression  and  brightness  which  were  afterwards  so 
characteristic  of  him  ;  but  in  later  years  he  regretted 
having  published  such  notions. 

60 


EDUCATION 

He  sums  up  his  argument  on  Liberty  and  Neces 
sity  as  follows  : 

"  When  the  Creator  first  designed  the  universe,  either  it  was  his 
will  and  intention  that  all  things  should  exist  and  be  in  the  manner 
they  are  at  this  time  ;  or  it  was  his  will  they  should  be  otherwise, 
i.e.  in  a  different  manner  :  To  say  it  was  his  will  things  should  be 
otherwise  than  they  are  is  to  say  somewhat  hath  contracted  his  will 
and  broken  his  measures,  which  is  impossible  because  inconsistent 
with  his  power  ;  therefore  we  must  allow  that  all  things  exist  now  in 
a  manner  agreeable  to  his  will,  and  in  consequence  of  that  are  all 
equally  good,  and  therefore  equally  esteemed  by  him." 

His  argument,  though  shorter,  is  almost  precisely 
the  same  as  that  with  which  Jonathan  Edwards  after 
wards  began  his  famous  essay  against  the  freedom  of 
the  will,  and  it  is  strange  that  Franklin's  biographers 
have  not  claimed  that  he  anticipated  Edwards.  But, 
so  far  as  Franklin  is  concerned,  it  is  probable  that 
he  was  only  using  ideas  that  were  afloat  in  the 
philosophy  of  the  time  ;  the  two  men  were  merely 
elaborating  an  argument  and  dealing  with  a  meta 
physical  problem  as  old  as  the  human  mind.  But 
Edwards  carried  the  train  of  thought  far  beyond 
Franklin,  and  added  the  doctrine  of  election,  while 
Franklin  contented  himself  with  establishing  to  his 
own  satisfaction  the  very  ancient  proposition  that 
there  can  be  no  freedom  of  the  will,  and  that  God 
must  be  the  author  of  evil  as  well  as  of  good. 

In  the  second  part  of  his  pamphlet,  "  Pleasure  and 
Pain,"  he  argues  that  pleasure  and  pain  are  exactly 
equal,  because  pain  or  uneasiness  produces  a  desire 
to  be  freed  from  it,  and  the  accomplishment  of  this 
desire  produces  a  corresponding  pleasure.  His  ar- 

61 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

gument  on  this,  as  well  as  on  the  first  half  of  his 
subject,  when  we  consider  that  he  was  a  mere  boy, 
is  very  interesting.  He  had  picked  up  by  reading 
and  conversation  a  large  part  of  the  philosophy  that 
permeated  the  mental  atmosphere  of  the  time,  and 
his  keen  observation  of  life  and  of  his  own  conscious 
ness  supplied  the  rest. 

*'  It  will  possibly  be  objected  here,  that  even  common  Experience 
shows  us,  there  is  not  in  Fact  this  Equality  :  Some  we  see  hearty, 
brisk  and  cheerful  perpetually,  while  others  are  constantly  burden'd 
with  a  heavy  '  Load  of  Maladies  and  Misfortunes,  remaining  for 
Years  perhaps  in  Poverty,  Disgrace,  or  Pain,  and  die  at  last  without 
any  Appearance  of  Recompence.'  .  .  .  And  here  let  it  be  ob 
served,  that  we  cannot  be  proper  Judges  of  the  good  or  bad  For 
tune  of  Others ;  we  are  apt  to  imagine,  that  what  would  give  us  a 
great  Uneasiness  or  a  great  Satisfaction,  has  the  same  Effect  upon 
others  ;  we  think,  for  instance,  those  unhappy,  who  must  depend 
upon  Charity  for  a  mean  Subsistence,  who  go  in  Rags,  fare  hardly, 
and  are  despis'd  and  scorn'd  by  all ;  not  considering  that  Custom 
renders  all  these  Things  easy,  familiar,  and  even  pleasant.  When 
we  see  Riches,  Grandeur  and  a  chearful  Countenance,  we  easily  im 
agine  Happiness  accompanies  them,  when  often  times  'tis  quite 
otherwise  :  Nor  is  a  constantly  sorrowful  Look,  attended  with  con 
tinual  Complaints,  an  infallible  Indication  of  Unhappiness.  .  .  . 
Besides  some  take  a  Satisfaction  in  being  thought  unhappy,  (as 
others  take  a  Pride  in  being  thought  humble,)  these  will  paint  their 
Misfortunes  to  others  in  the  strongest  Colours,  and  leave  no  Means 
unus'd  to  make  you  think  them  thoroughly  miserable ;  so  great  a 
Pleasure  it  is  to  them  to  be  pitied ;  Others  retain  the  form  and  out 
side  Shew  or  Sorrow,  long  after  the  thing  itself,  with  its  Cause,  is 
remov'd  from  the  Mind ;  it  is  a  Habit  they  have  acquired  and  can 
not  leave." 

A  very  sharp  insight  into  human  nature  is  shown 
in  this  passage,  and  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  boy 
who  wrote  it  afterwards  became  a  mover  of  men. 
His  mind  was  led  to  the  subject  by  being  employed 

62 


EDUCATION 

to  print  a  book  which  was  very  famous  in  its  day, 
called  "The  Religion  of  Nature  Delineated."  He 
disliked  its  arguments,  and  must  needs  refute  them 
by  his  pamphlet  "Liberty  and  Necessity,"  which  was 
certainly  a  most  vigorous  mental  discipline  for  him, 
although  he  was  afterwards  dissatisfied  with  its  nega 
tive  conclusions. 

Obscure  and  poor  as  he  was,  he  instinctively  seized 
on  everything  that  would  contribute  to  his  education 
and  enlargement  of  mind.  He  made  the  acquaint 
ance  of  a  bookseller,  who  agreed  for  a  small  com 
pensation  to  lend  him  books.  His  pamphlet  on 
Liberty  and  Necessity  brought  him  to  the  notice  of 
Dr.  Lyons,  author  of  "The  Infallibility  of  Human 
Judgment,"  who  took  him  to  an  ale-house  called 
The  Horns,  where  a  sort  of  club  of  free-thinkers  as 
sembled.  There  he  met  Dr.  Mandeville,  who  wrote 
"The  Fable  of  the  Bees."  Lyons  also  introduced 
him  to  Dr.  Pemberton,  who  promised  to  give  him  an 
opportunity  of  seeing  Sir  Isaac  Newton  ;  but  this  was 
never  fulfilled. 

The  conversation  of  these  men,  if  not  edifying 
in  a  religious  way,  was  no  doubt  stimulating  to 
his  intelligence.  He  had  brought  over  with  him 
a  purse  made  of  asbestos,  and  this  he  succeeded 
in  selling  to  Sir  Hans  Sloane,  who  invited  him 
to  his  house  and  showed  him  his  museum  of  curi 
osities. 

He  says  of  the  asbestos  purse  in  his  Autobiography 
that  Sir  Hans  "  persuaded  me  to  let  him  add  it  to 
his  collection,  for  which  he  paid  me  handsomely." 
But  the  persuasion  was  the  other  way,  for  the  letter 

63 


THE   TRUE  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

which  he  wrote  to  Sir  Hans,  offering  to  sell  him  the 
purse,  has  been  discovered  and  printed. 

Even  the  woman  he  lodged  with  contributed  to 
his  education.  She  was  a  clergyman's  daughter, 
had  lived  much  among  people  of  distinction,  and 
knew  a  thousand  anecdotes  of  them  as  far  back  as 
the  time  of  Charles  II.  She  was  lame  with  the  gout, 
and,  seldom  going  out  of  her  room,  liked  to  have 
company.  Her  conversation  was  so  amusing  and 
instructive  that  he  often  spent  an  evening  with  her ; 
and  she,  on  her  part,  found  the  young  man  so 
agreeable  that  after  he  had  engaged  a  lodging  near 
by  for  two  shillings  a  week  she  would  not  let  him 
go,  and  agreed  to  keep  him  for  one  and  sixpence. 
So  the  future  economist  of  two  continents  enlarged 
his  knowledge  and  at  the  same  time  reduced  his 
board  to  thirty-seven  cents  a  week. 

He  certainly  needed  all  the  money  he  could  get, 
for  he  was  helping  to  support  Ralph,  who  was  trying 
to  become  a  literary  man  and  gradually  degenerating 
into  a  political  hack.  Ralph  made  the  acquaintance 
of  a  young  milliner  who  lodged  in  the  same  house 
with  them.  She  had  known  better  days  and  was 
genteelly  bred,  but  before  long  she  became  Ralph's 
mistress. 

Ralph  went  into  the  country  to  look  for  employ 
ment  at  school-teaching,  and  left  his  mistress  in 
Franklin's  care.  As  she  had  lost  friends  and  em 
ployment  by  her  association  with  Ralph,  she  was 
soon  in  need  of  money,  and  borrowed  from  Franklin. 
Presuming  on  her  dependent  position,  he  attempted 
liberties  with  her,  and  was  repulsed  with  indignation. 

64 


EDUCATION 

Ralph  hearing  of  it  on  his  return,  informed  him  that 
their  friendship  was  at  an  end  and  all  obligations 
cancelled.  This  precluded  Franklin's  hope  of  being 
repaid  the  money  he  had  lent,  but  it  had  the  advan 
tage  of  putting  a  stop  to  further  lending. 

For  a  year  and  a  half  he  lived  in  London,  still 
keeping  up  his  reading,  but  also  going  to  the 
theatres  and  meeting  many  odd  characters  and  a 
few  distinguished  ones.  It  was  an  experience  which 
at  least  enlarged  his  mind  if  it  did  not  improve  his 
morals.  He  eventually  became  very  tired  of  Lon 
don,  longing  for  the  simple  pleasures  and  happy 
days  he  had  enjoyed  in  Pennsylvania,  and  he  seized 
the  first  opportunity  to  return.  Mr.  Denham,  the 
Quaker  merchant  who  had  come  over  in  the  same 
ship  with  him,  was  about  to  return,  and  offered  to 
employ  him  as  clerk.  He  eagerly  accepted  the  offer, 
helped  his  benefactor  to  buy  and  pack  his  supply 
of  goods,  and  landed  again  in  Philadelphia  in  the 
autumn  of  1726. 

Keith  was  no  longer  governor.  Miss  Read,  de 
spairing  of  Franklin's  return,  had  yielded  to  the  per 
suasions  of  her  family  and  married  a  potter  named 
Rogers,  and  Keimer  seemed  to  be  prospering.  But 
the  young  printer  was  in  a  business  that  he  liked.  He 
was  devoted  to  Mr.  Denham,  with  whom  his  pros 
pects  were  excellent,  and  he  thought  himself  set 
tled  at  last.  In  a  few  months,  however,  both  he 
and  Mr.  Denham  were  taken  with  the  pleurisy.  Mr. 
Denham  died,  and  Franklin,  fully  expecting  to  die, 
made  up  his  mind  to  it  like  a  philosopher  who  be 
lieved  that  there  was  nothing  beyond  the  grave.  He 
5  65 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

was  rather  disappointed,  he  tells  us,  when  he  got 
well,  for  all  the  troublesome  business  of  resignation 
would  some  day  have  to  be  done  over  again. 

Finding  himself  on  his  recovery  without  employ 
ment,  he  went  back  again  to  work  at  his  old  trade 
with  Keimer,  and  before  long  was  in  business  for 
himself  with  a  partner.  He  had  never  paid  Mr. 
Vernon  the  money  he  had  collected  for  him  ;  but, 
fortunately,  Mr.  Vernon  was  easy  with  him,  and,  ex 
cept  for  worrying  over  this  very  serious  debt  and 
the  loss  of  Miss  Read,  Franklin  began  to  do  fairly 
well,  and  his  self-education  was  continued  in  earnest. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  he  founded  the  club 
called  the  Junto,  which  he  has  described  as  "  the 
best  school  of  philosophy,  morality,  and  politics  that 
then  existed  in  the  province." 

This  description  was  true  enough,  but  was  not 
very  high  praise,  for  at  that  time  Pennsylvania  had 
no  college,  and  the  schools  for  children  were  mostly 
of  an  elementary  kind.  Franklin,  in  making  this 
very  sweeping  assertion,  may  have  intended  one  of 
his  deep,  sly  jokes.  It  was  the  only  school  of  philoso 
phy  in  the  province,  and  in  that  sense  undoubtedly 
the  best 

It  was  a  sort  of  small  debating  club,  in  which  the 
members  educated  one  another  by  discussion  ;  and 
Franklin's  biographer,  Parton,  supposes  that  it  was  in 
part  suggested  by  Cotton  Mather's  benefit  societies, 
which  were  well  known  in  Boston  when  Franklin 
was  a  boy. 

The  first  members  of  the  Junto  were  eleven  in 
number,  young  workmen  like  Franklin,  four  of 

66 


EDUCATION 

them  being  printers.  The  others  were  Joseph  Brient- 
nal,  a  copier  of  deeds ;  Thomas  Godfrey,  a  self-taught 
mathematician,  inventor  of  the  quadrant  now  known 
as  Hadley's ;  Nicholas  Scull ;  William  Parsons,  a  shoe 
maker  ;  William  Maugridge,  a  carpenter ;  William 
Coleman,  a  merchant's  clerk ;  and  Robert  Grace,  a 
witty,  generous  young  gentleman  of  some  fortune. 
The  Junto  was  popularly  known  as  the  Leather- 
Apron  Club,  and  Franklin  has  told  us  in  his  Auto 
biography  of  its  methods  and  rules  : 

"  We  met  on  Friday  evenings.  The  rules  that  I  drew  up  required 
that  every  member,  in  his  turn,  should  produce  one  or  more  queries 
on  any  point  of  Morals,  Politics,  or  Natural  Philosophy,  to  be  dis- 
cuss'd  by  the  company  ;  and  once  in  three  months  produce  and  read 
an  essay  of  his  own  writing,  on  any  subject  he  pleased.  Our  debates 
were  to  be  under  the  direction  of  a  president,  and  to  be  conducted 
in  the  sincere  spirit  of  inquiry  after  truth,  without  fondness  for  dis 
pute,  or  desire  of  victory ;  and,  to  prevent  warmth,  all  expressions 
of  positiveness  in  opinions,  or  direct  contradiction,  were  after  some 
time  made  contraband,  and  prohibited  under  small  pecuniary  penal 
ties." 

From  other  sources  we  learn  that  when  a  new 
member  was  initiated  he  stood  up  and,  with  his  hand 
on  his  breast,  was  asked  the  following  questions  : 

"  I.  Have  you  any  particular  disrespect  to  any  present  member? 
Answer  :  I  have  not. 

"2.  Do  you  sincerely  declare  that  you  love  mankind  in  general 
of  what  profession  or  religion  soever  ?  Answer  :  I  do. 

4 '  3.  Do  you  think  any  person  ought  to  be  harmed  in  his  body, 
name,  or  goods  for  mere  speculative  opinions  or  his  external  way  of 
worship  ?  Answer  :  No. 

"4.  Do  you  love  truth  for  truth's  sake,  and  will  you  endeavor 
impartially  to  find  and  receive  it  yourself  and  communicate  it  to 
others?  Answer:  Yes." 

67 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

At  every  meeting  certain  questions  were  read,  with 
a  pause  after  each  one ;  and  these  questions  might 
very  well  have  been  suggested  by  those  of  the 
Mather  benefit  societies.  The  first  six  are  sufficient 
to  give  an  idea  of  them  all  : 

"I.  Have  you  met  with  anything  in  the  author  you  last  read, 
remarkable  or  suitable  to  be  communicated  to  the  Junto,  particularly 
in  history,  morality,  poetry,  physic,  travels,  mechanic  arts,  or  other 
parts  of  knowledge  ? 

"2.  What  new  story  have  you  lately  heard,  agreeable  for  telling 
in  conversation  ? 

"  3.  Hath  any  citizen  in  your  knowledge  failed  in  his  business 
lately,  and  what  have  you  heard  of  the  cause  ? 

"4.  Have  you  lately  heard  of  any  citizen's  thriving  well,  and  by 
what  means  ? 

"5.  Have  you  lately  heard  how  any  present  rich  man,  here  or 
elsewhere,  got  his  estate  ? 

"6.  Do  you  know  of  a  fellow- citizen,  who  has  lately  done  a 
worthy  action,  deserving  praise  and  imitation  ;  or  who  has  lately 
Committed  an  error,  proper  for  us  to  be  warned  against  and  avoid?" 

The  number  of  members  was  limited  to  twelve, 
and  Franklin  always  opposed  an  increase.  Instead 
of  adding  to  the  membership,  he  suggested  that  each 
member  form  a  similar  club,  and  five  or  six  were 
thus  organized,  with  such  names  as  The  Vine,  The 
Union,  The  Band.  The  original  club  is  said  to  have 
continued  for  forty  years.  But  it  did  not  keep  up  its 
old  character.  Its  original  purpose  had  been  to 
educate  its  members,  to  supply  the  place  of  the 
modern  academy  or  college  ;  but  when  the  mem 
bers  became  older  and  their  education  more  com 
plete,  they  cared  no  longer  for  self-imposed  tasks  of 
essay-writing  and  formal  debate  on  set  questions. 
They  turned  it  into  a  social  club,  or,  rather,  they 

68 


EDUCATION 

dropped  its  educational  and  continued  its  social  side, 
— for  it  had  always  been  social,  and  even  convivial, 
which  was  one  of  the  means  adopted  for  keeping  the 
members  together  and  rendering  their  studies  easy 
and  pleasant. 

A  list  of  some  of  the  questions  discussed  by  the 
Junto  has  been  preserved,  from  which  a  few  are  given 
as  specimens  : 

"  Is  sound  an  entity  or  body? 
How  may  the  phenomena  of  vapors  be  explained  ? 
Is  self-interest  the  rudder  that  steers  mankind? 
' '  Which  is  the  best  form  of  government,  and  what  was  that  lorm 
which  first  prevailed  among  mankind  ? 

"Can  any  one  particular  form  of  government  suit  all  mankind? 

What  is  the  reason  that  the  tides  rise  higher  in  the  Bay  of  Fundy 
than  in  the  Bay  of  Delaware  ?" 

The  young  men  who  every  Friday  evening  de 
bated  such  questions  as  these  were  certainly  ac 
quiring  an  education  which  was  not  altogether  an 
inferior  substitute  for  that  furnished  by  our  modern 
institutions  endowed  with  millions  dr~ciolla"rs^and 
officered  by  plodding  professors  prepared  by  years 
of  exhaustive  study.  But  the  plodding  professors 
and  the  modern  institutions  are  necessary,  because 
young  men,  as  a  rule,  cannot  educate  themselves. 
The  Junto  could  not  have  existed  without  Franklin. 
He  inspired  and  controlled  it.  His  personality  and 
energy  pervaded  it,  and  the  eleven  other  members 
were  but  clay  in  his  hands.  His  rare  precocity  and 
enthusiasm  inspired  a  love  for  and  an  interest  in 
study  which  money,  apparatus,  and  professors  often 
fail  to  arouse. 

69 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

The  Junto  debated  the  question  of  paper  money, 
which  was  then  agitating  the  Province  of  Pennsyl 
vania,  and  Franklin  was  led  to  write  and  publish  a 
pamphlet  called  "A  Modest  Inquiry  into  the  Na 
ture  and  Necessity  of  a  Paper  Currency,"  a  very 
crude  performance,  showing  the  deficiencies  of  his 
self-education.  The  use  of  the  word  modest  in  the 
title  was  in  pursuance  of  the  shrewd  plan  he  had 
adopted  of  affecting  great  humility  in  the  expression 
of  his  opinions.  But  his  description  in  his  Auto 
biography  of  the  effect  of  this  pamphlet  is  by  no 
means  either  modest  or  humble  : 

"  It  was  well  received  by  the  common  people  in  general ;  but  the 
rich  men  disliked  it,  for  it  increased  and  strengthened  the  clamor  for 
more  money,  and  they  happening  to  have  no  writers  among  them 
that  were  able  to  answer  it  their  opposition  slackened,  and  the  point 
was  carried  by  a  majority  in  the  House." 

In  other  words,  he  implies  that  the  boyish  debate 
of  twelve  young  workingmen,  resulting  in  the  publi 
cation  of  a  pamphlet  by  one  of  them,  was  the  means 
of  passing  the  Pennsylvania  paper-money  act  of 
1729.  His  biographers  have  echoed  his  pleasant 
delusion,  and  this  pamphlet,  which  in  reality  con 
tains  some  of  the  most  atrocious  fallacies  in  finance 
and  political  economy,  has  been  lauded  as  a  wonder, 
the  beginning  of  modern  political  economy,  and  the 
source  from  which  Adam  Smith  stole  the  material 
for  his  "  Wealth  of  Nations."* 

In  spite  of  all  his  natural  brightness  and  laudable 

#  Pennsylvania  :  Colony  and  Commonwealth,  p.  80. 
70 


EDUCATION 

efforts  for  his  own  improvement,  he  was  but  half 
educated  and  full  of  crude  enthusiasm.  He  was 
only  twenty-three,  and  nothing  more  could  be  ex 
pected. 

Fifteen  or  twenty  years  afterwards,  with  added 
experience,  Franklin  became  a  very  different  sort 
,pf  person.  The  man  of  forty,  laboriously  investi 
gating  science,  discovering  the  secrets  of  electricity, 
and  rejecting  everything  that  had  not  been  subjected 
to  the  most  rigid  proof,  bore  but  little  resemblance 
to  the  precocious  youth  of  twenty-three,  the  victim 
of  any  specious  sophism  that  promised  a  millennium. 
But  he  never  fully  apologized  to  the  world  for  his 
paper-money  delusion,  contenting  himself  with  say 
ing  in  his  Autobiography,  "  I  now  think  there  are 
limits  beyond  which  the  quantity  may  be  hurtful." 

Three  years  after  the  publication  of  his  pamphlet 
on  paper  money  he  began  to  study  modern  lan 
guages,  and  soon  learned  to  read  French,  Italian, 
and  Spanish.  An  acquaintance  who  was  also  study 
ing  Italian  often  tempted  him  to  play  chess.  As 
this  interfered  with  the  Italian  studies,  Franklin 
arranged  with  him  that  the  victor  in  any  game 
should  have  the  right  to  impose  a  task,  either  in 
grammar  or  translation ;  and  as  they  played  equally, 
they  beat  each  other  into  a  knowledge  of  the 
language. 

After  he  had  become  tolerably  well  acquainted 
with  these  modern  languages  he  happened  one  day 
to  look  into  a  Latin  Testament,  and  found  that  he 
could  read  it  more  easily  than  he  had  supposed.  The 
modern  languages  had,  he  thought,  smoothed  the 

7* 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

way  for  him,  and  he  immediately  began  to  study 
Latin,  which  had  been  dropped  ever  since,  as  a  little 
boy,  he  had  spent  a  year  in  the  Boston  Grammar 
School. 

From  this  circumstance  he  jumped  to  the  con 
clusion  that  the  usual  method  pursued  in  schools 
of  studying  Latin  before  the  modern  languages  was 
all  wrong.  It  would  be  better,  he  said,  to  begin 
with  the  French,  proceed  to  the  Italian,  and  finally 
reach  the  Latin.  This  would  be  beginning  with 
the  easiest  first,  and  would  also  have  the  advantage 
that  if  the  pupils  should  quit  the  study  of  languages, 
and  never  arrive  at  the  Latin,  they  would  have  ac 
quired  another  tongue  or  two  which,  being  in  modern 
use,  might  be  serviceable  to  them  in  after-life. 

This  suggestion,  though  extravagantly  praised, 
has  never  been  adopted,  for  the  modern  languages 
are  now  taught  contemporaneously  with  Latin.  It 
was  an  idea  founded  exclusively  on  a  single  and 
very  unusual  experience,  without  any  test  as  to  its 
general  applicability.  But  all  Franklin's  notions  of 
education  were  extremely  radical,  because  based  on 
his  own  circumstances,  which  were  not  those  of  the 
ordinary  youth,  to  whom  all  systems  of  education 
have  to  be  adapted. 

He  wished  to  entirely  abolish  Latin  and  Greek. 
They  had  been  useful,  he  said,  only  in  the  past, 
when  they  were  the  languages  of  the  learned  and 
when  all  books  of  science  and  important  knowledge 
were  written  in  them.  At  that  time  there  had  been 
a  reason  for  learning  them,  but  that  reason  had  now 
passed  away.  English  should  be  substituted  for 

72 


EDUCATION 

them,  and  its  systematic  study  would  give  the  same 
knowledge  of  language-structure  and  the  same  men 
tal  training  that  were  supposed  to  be  attainable  only 
through  Latin  and  Greek.  His  own  self-education 
had  been  begun  in  English.  He  had  analyzed  and 
rewritten  the  essays  in  Addison's  Spectator,  and, 
believing  that  in  this  way  he  had  acquired  his  own 
most  important  mental  training,  he  concluded  that 
the  same  method  should  be  imposed  on  every  one. 
He  wished  to  set  up  the  study  of  that  author  and 
of  Pope,  Milton,  and  Shakespeare  as  against  Cicero, 
Virgil,  and  Homer. 

One  of  our  most  peculiar  American  habits  is 
that  every  one  who  has  a  pet  fancy  or  experience 
immediately  wants  it  adopted  into  the  public  school 
system.  We  not  uncommonly  close  our  explana 
tion  of  something  that  strikes  us  as  very  important 
by  declaring,  "  and  I  would  have  it  taught  in  the 
public  schools."  It  has  even  been  suggested  that 
the  game  of  poker  should  be  taught  as  tending  to 
develop  shrewdness  and  observation. 

Franklin's  foundation  for  all  education  was  Eng 
lish.  He  would  have  also  French,  German,  or 
Italian,  and  practical  subjects, — natural  science,  as 
tronomy,  history,  government,  athletic  sports,  good 
manners,  good  morals,  and  other  topics  ;  for  when 
one  is  drawing  up  these  ideal  schemes  without  a 
particle  of  practical  experience  in  teaching  it  is  so 
easy  to  throw  in  one  thing  after  another  which  seems 
noble  or  beautiful  for  boys  and  girls  to  know.  But 
English  he  naturally  thought  from  his  own  experi 
ence  was  the  gate-way  to  everything. 

73 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

In  the  course  of  his  life  Franklin  received  the 
honorary  degree  of  doctor  of  laws  from  Harvard, 
Yale,  Oxford,  Edinburgh,  and  St.  Andrew's,  and  he 
founded  a  college.  It  has  been  said  in  support  of 
his  peculiar  theories  of  education  that  when,  in  1776, 
the  Continental  Congress,  which  was  composed 
largely  of  college  graduates,  was  considering  who 
should  be  sent  as  commissioner  to  France,  the  only 
member  who  knew  enough  of  the  language  to  be 
thoroughly  eligible  was  the  one  who  had  never  been 
near  a  college  except  to  receive  honorary  degrees 
for  public  services  he  had  performed  without  the 
assistance  of  a  college  training. 

This  is,  of  course,  an  interesting  statement ;  but 
as  an  argument  it  is  of  no  value.  Franklin  could 
read  French,  but  could  not  speak  it,  and  he  had 
to  learn  to  do  so  after  he  reached  France.  By  his 
own  confession  he  never  was  able  to  speak  it  well, 
and  disregarded  the  grammar  altogether, — a  natural 
consequence  of  being  self-taught.  John  Adams  and 
other  members  of  the  Congress  could  read  French 
as  well  as  Franklin  ;  and  when,  in  their  turn,  tkey 
went  to  France,  they  learned  to  speak  it  as  fluently 
as  he. 

(In  1743  Franklin  attempted  to  establish  an  acad 
emy  in  Philadelphia.  The  higher  education  was 
very  much  neglected  at  that  time  in  the  middle 
colonies.  The  nearest  colleges  were  Harvard  and 
Yale,  far  to  the  north  in  New  England,  and  William 
and  Mary,  far  to  the  south  in  Virginia.  The  Pres 
byterians  had  a  few  good  schools  in  Pennsylvania 
of  almost  the  grade  of  academies,  but  none  in 

74 


EDUCATION 

Philadelphia.  The  Quakers,  as  a  class,  were  not 
interested  in  colleges  or  universities,  and  confined 
their  efforts  to  elementary  schools.  People  were 
alarmed  at  the  ignorance  in  which  not  only  the 
masses  but  even  the  sons  of  the  best  citizens  were 
growing  up,  and  it  was  the  general  opinion  that 
those  born  in  the  colony  were  inferior  in  intelli 
gence  to  their  fathers  who  had  emigrated  from 
England. 

Franklin's  efforts  failed  in  1743  because  there 
was  much  political  agitation  in  the  province  and 
because  of  the  preparations  for  the  war  with  Spain 
in  which  England  was  about  to  engage  ;  but  in  1 749 
he  renewed  his  attempt,  and  was  successful.  He 
was  then  a  man  of  forty-three,  had  been  married 
thirteen  years,  and  had  children,  legitimate  Shd  ^ille 
gitimate,  to  be  educated.  The  Junto  supported 
him,  and'  in  aid  of  his  plan  he  wrote  a  pamphlet 
called  "  Proposals  relating  to  the  Education  of 
Youth  in  Pennsylvania." 

In  this  pamphlet  he  could  not  set  forth  his  extreme 
vij^s  of  education  because  even  the  most  liberal 
people  in  the  town  were  not  in  favor  of  them.  Phila 
delphia  was  at  that  time  the  home  of  liberal  ideas 
in  the  colonies.  Many  people  were  in  favor  of  alter 
ing  the  old  system  of  education  and  teaching  science 
and  other  practical  subjects  in  addition  to  Latin  and 
Greek  ;  but  they  did  not  favor  abolishing  the  study 
of  these  languages,  and  they  could  not  see  the  neces 
sity  of  making  English  so  all-important  as  Franklin 
wished.  He  was  compelled,  therefore,  to  conform 
his  arguments  to  the  opinions  of  those  from  whom 

75 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

he  expected  subscriptions,  and  he  did  this  with 
his  usual  discretion,  making,  however,  the  English 
branches  as  important  as  was  possible  under  the 
circumstances. 

The  result  of  the  pamphlet  was  that  five  thousand 
pounds  were  subscribed,  and  the  academy  started 
within  a  year,  occupying  a  large  building  on  Fourth 
Street,  south  of  Arch,  which  had  been  built  for 
the  use  of  George  Whitefield,  the  famous  English 
preacher.  It  supplied  a  real  need  of  the  com 
munity  and  had  plenty  of  pupils.  Within  six  years 
it  obtained  a  charter  from  the  proprietors  of  the 
province,  and  became  a  college,  with  an  academy 
and  a  charitable  school  annexed. 

A  young  Scotchman,  the  Rev.  William  Smith, 
was  appointed  to  govern  the  institution,  and  was 
called  the  provost.  He  had  very  advanced  opinions 
on  education,  holding  much  the  same  views  as  were 
expressed  in  Franklin's  proposals ;  but  he  was  not 
in  accord  with  Franklin's  extreme  ideas.*  Those 
who  intended  to  become  lawyers,  doctors,  or  clergy 
men  should  be  taught  to  walk  in  the  old  paths  mid 
to  study  Latin  and  Greek ;  but  the  rest  were  to  be 
deluged  with  a  knowledge  of  accounts,  mathematics, 
oratory,  poetry,  chronology,  history,  natural  and 
mechanic  philosophy,  agriculture,  ethics,  physics, 
chemistry,  anatomy,  modern  languages,  fencing, 
dancing,  religion,  and  everything  else  that  by  any 
chance  might  be  useful. 

Thus  the  academy  founded  by  Franklin  became 


*  Pennsylvania  :  Colony  and  Commonwealth,  p.  141. 
76 


EDUCATION 

the  College  of  Philadelphia,  and  as  managed  by 
Provost  Smith  it  was  a  very  good  one  and  played 
a  most  interesting  part  in  the  life  and  politics  of  the 
colony.  /Its  charter  was  revoked  and  its  property 
confiscated  during  the  Revolution,  and  another  col 
lege  was  created,  called  the  University  of  the  State 
of  Pennsylvania,  which  was  worthless.  Eleven  years 
afterwards  the  old  college  was  restored  to  its  rights, 
and  soon  after  that  it  was  combined  with  the  State 
University,  and  the  union  of  the  two  produced  the 
present  University  of  Pennsylvania.*  It  should, 
however,  have  been  called  Franklin  University,  which 
would  have  been  in  every  way  a  better  name. 


*  Pennsylvania  :  Colony  and  Commonwealth,  pp.  374-377,  381. 


77 


Ill 

RELIGION    AND    MORALS 

; 

(  FRANKLIN'S  father  and  mother  were  Massachu- 
n  setts  Puritans  who,  while  not  conspicuously  re 
ligious,  attended  steadily  to  their  religious  duties. 
They  lived  in  Milk  Street,  Boston,  near  the  Old 
South  Church,  and  little  Benjamin  was  carried 
across  the  street  the  day  he  was  born  and  baptized 
in  that  venerable  building. 

He  was  born  on  Sunday,  January  6,  1706  (Old 
Style),  and  if  it  had  occurred  in  one  of  the  Massa 
chusetts  towns  where  the  minister  was  very  strict, 
baptism  might  have  been  refused,  for  some  of  the 
Puritans  were  so  severe  in  their  views  of  Sabbath- 
keeping  that  they  said  a  child  born  on  the  Sabbath 
must  have  been  conceived  on  the  Sabbath,  and  was 
therefore  hopelessly  unregenerate.* 

These  good  men  would  have  found  their  theory 
fully  justified  in  Franklin,  for  he  became  a  terrible 
example  of  the  results  of  Sabbath  birth  and  be 
getting.  As  soon  as  opportunity  offered  he  became 
a  most  persistent  Sabbath-breaker.  While  he  lived 
with  his  parents  he  was  compelled  to  go  to  church  ; 
but  when  apprenticed  to  his  elder  brother,  and  living 
away  from  home,  he  devoted  Sunday  to  reading  and 


*  Men,  Women,  and  Manners  in  Colonial  Times,  vol.  i.  p.  210. 


RELIGION   AND   MORALS 

study.     He  would  slip  off  to  the  printing-office  and 
spend  nearly  the  whole  day  there   alone  with  his    (^ 
books  ;  and  during  a  large  part  of  his  life  Sunday    { 
was  to  him  a  day  precious  for  its  opportunities  for      \ 
study  rather  than  for  its  opportunities  for  worship. 

His  persistence  in  Sabbath-breaking  was  fortified 
by  his  entire  loss  of  faith  in  the  prevailing  religion. 

"I  had  been  religiously  educated  as  a  Presbyterian;  and  tho' 
some  of  the  dogmas  of  that  persuasion,  such  as  the  eternal  decrees 
of  Gody  election,  reprobation^  etc.,  appeared  to  me  unintelligible, 
others  doubtful,  and  I  early  absented  myself  from  the  public  assem 
blies  of  the  sect,  Sunday  being  my  studying  day,  I  never  was  with 
out  some  religious  principles.  I  never  doubted,  for  instance,  the 
existence  of  the  Deity ;  that  he  made  the  world  and  governed  it  by 
his  Providence  ;  that  the  most  acceptable  service  of  God  was  the 
doing  good  to  man  ;  that  our  souls  are  immortal ;  and  that  all  crime 
will  be  punished  and  virtue  rewarded,  either  here  or  hereafter." 
(Bigelow's  Works  of  Franklin,  vol.  i.  p.  172.) 

It  will  be  observed  that  he  speaks  of  himself  as 
having  been  educated  a  Presbyterian,  a  term  which 
in  his  time  was  applied  to  the  Puritans  of  Massa 
chusetts.  We  find  Thomas  Jefferson  also  describing 
the  New  Englanders  as  Presbyterians,  and  in  colo 
nial  times  the  Quakers  in  Pennsylvania  used  the 
same  term  when  speaking  of  them.  But  they  were 
not  Presbyterians  in  the  sense  in  which  the  word 
is  now  used,  and  their  religion  is  usually  described 
as  Congregationalism. 

In  the  earlier  part  of  his  Autobiography  Franklin 
describes  more  particularly  how  he  was  led  away 
from  the  faith  of  his  parents.  Among  his  father's 
books  were  some  sermons  delivered  on  the  Boyle 
foundation,  which  was  a  fund  established  at  Oxford, 

79 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

England,  by  Robert  Boyle  for  the  purpose  of  having 
discourses  delivered  to  prove  the  truth  of  Chris 
tianity.  Franklin  read  some  of  these  sermons  when 
he  was  only  fifteen  years  old,  and  was  very  much  in 
terested  in  the  attacks  made  in  them  on  the  deists, 
the  forerunners  of  the  modern  Unitarians.  He 
thought  that  the  arguments  of  the  deists  which 
were  quoted  to  be  refuted  were  much  stronger  than 
the  attempts  to  refute  them. 

Shaftesbury  and  Collins  were  the  most  famous 
deistical  writers  of  that  time.  Their  books  were  in 
effect  a  denial  of  the  miraculous  part  of  Christian 
ity,  and  whoever  accepted  their  arguments  was  left 
with  a  belief  only  in  God  and  the  immortality  of 
the  soul,  with  Christianity  a  code  of  morals  and 
beautiful  sentiments  instead  of  a  revealed  religion. 
From  reading  quotations  from  these  authors  Frank 
lin  was  soon  led  to  read  their  works  entire,  and 
they  profoundly  interested  him.  Like  their  suc 
cessors,  the  Unitarians,  they  were  full  of  religious 
liberty  and  liberal,  broad  ideas  on  all  subjects,  and 
Franklin's  mind  tended  by  nature  in  that  direc 
tion. 

It  seems  that  Franklin's  brother  James  was  also 
a  liberal.  He  had  been  employed  to  print  a  little 
newspaper,  called  the  Boston  Gazette,  and  when  this 
work  was  taken  from  him,  he  started  a  newspaper 
of  his  own,  called  the  New  England  Courant.  His 
apprentice,  Benjamin,  delivered  copies  of  it  to  the 
subscribers,  and  before  long  began  to  write  for  it 

The  Courant)  under  the  guidance  of  James  Frank 
lin  and  his  friends,  devoted  itself  to  ridiculing  the 

So 


RELIGION  AND   MORALS 

government  and  religion  of  Massachusetts.  A  de 
scription  of  it,  supposed  to  have  been  written  by 
Cotton  Mather,  tells  us  that  it  was  "full-freighted 
with  nonsense,  unmanliness,  raillery,  profaneness, 
immorality,  arrogance,  calumnies,  lies,  contradic 
tions,  and  what  not,  all  tending  to  quarrels  and 
divisions  and  to  debauch  and  corrupt  the  minds 
and  manners  of  New  England."  Among  other 
things,  the  Courant,  as  Increase  Mather  informs  us, 
was  guilty  of  saying  that  "  if  the  ministers  of  God 
approve  of  a  thing,  it  is  a  sign  it  is  of  the  devil ; 
which  is  a  horrid  thing  to  be  related."  Its  printer 
and  editor  was  warned  that  he  would  soon,  though 
a  young  man,  have  to  appear  before  the  judgment- 
seat  of  God  to  answer  for  things  so  vile  and  abomi 
nable. 

Some  of  the  Puritan  ministers,  under  the  lead  of 
Cotton  Mather,  were  at  that  time  trying  to  introduce 
inoculation  as  a  preventive  of  small-pox,  and  for 
this  the  Courant  attacked  them.  It  attempted  to 
make  a  sensation  out  of  everything.  Increase 
Mather  boasted  that  he  had  ceased  to  take  it.  To 
which  the  Courant  replied  that  it  was  true  he  was 
no  longer  a  subscriber,  but  that  he  sent  his  grand 
son  every  week  to  buy  it  It  was  a  sensational 
journal,  and  probably  the  first  of  its  kind  in  this 
country.  People  bought  and  read  it  for  the  sake 
of  its  audacity.  It  was  an  instance  of  liberalism 
gone  mad  and  degenerated  into  mere  radicalism  and 
negation. 

Some  of  the  articles  attributed  to  Franklin,  and 
which  were  in  all  probability  written  by  him,  were 
6  81 


THE   TRUE  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

violent  attacks  on  Harvard  College,  setting  forth 
the  worthlessness  of  its  stupid  graduates,  nearly  all 
of  whom  went  into  the  Church,  which  is  described 
as  a  temple  of  ambition  and  fraud  controlled  by 
money.  There  is  a  touch  of  what  would  now  be 
called  Socialism  or  Populism  in  these  articles,  and 
it  is  not  surprising  to  find  the  author  of  them  after 
wards  writing  a  pamphlet  in  favor  of  an  inflated 
paper  currency. 

The  government  of  Massachusetts  allowed  the 
Courant  to  run  its  wicked  course  for  about  a  year, 
and  then  fell  upon  it,  imprisoning  James  Franklin  for 
a  month  in  the  common  jail.  Benjamin  conducted 
the  journal  during  the  imprisonment  of  his  brother, 
who  was  not  released  until  he  had  humbly  apolo 
gized.  The  Courant  then  went  on,  and  was  worse 
than  ever,  until  an  order  of  council  was  issued  for 
bidding  its  publication,  because  it  had  mocked  re 
ligion,  brought  the  Holy  Scriptures  into  contempt, 
and  profanely  abused  the  faithful  ministers  of  God, 
as  well  as  His  Majesty's  government  and  the  govern 
ment  of  the  province. 

The  friends  of  James  Franklin  met  and  decided 
that  they  would  evade  the  order  of  council.  James 
would  no  longer  print  the  paper,  but  it  should  be 
issued  in  the  name  of  Benjamin.  So  Benjamin's 
papers  of  apprenticeship  were  cancelled,  lest  it  should 
be  said  that  James  was  still  publishing  the  paper 
through  his  apprentice.  And,  in  order  to  retain 
Benjamin's  services,  James  secured  from  him  secret 
articles  of  apprenticeship.  A  little  essay  on  "  Hat 
Honor"  which  appeared  in  the  Courant  soon  after- 

82 


RELIGION  AND   MORALS 

wards  is  supposed  to  have  been  written  by  Benja 
min  and  is  certainly  in  his  style. 

"  In  old  Time  it  was  no  disrespect  for  Men  and  Women  to  be 
called  by  their  own  Names  :  Adam  was  never  called  Master  Adam  ; 
we  never  read  of  Noah  Esquire,  Lot  Knight  and  Baronet,  nor  the 
Right  Honourable  Abraham,  Viscount  of  Mesopotamia,  Baron  of 
Canaan;  no,  no,  they  were  plain  Men,  honest  Country  Grasiers,  that 
took  care  of  their  P'amilies  and  Flocks.  Moses  was  a  great  Prophet, 
and  Aaron  a  priest  of  the  Lord  ;  but  we  never  read  of  the  Reverend 
Moses,  nor  the  Right  Reverend  Father  in  God  Aaron,  by  Divine 
Providence,  Lord  Arch- Bishop  of  Israel  ;  Thou  never  sawest  Madam 
Rebecca  in  the  Bible,  my  Lady  Rachel :  nor  Mary,  tho'  a  Princess 
of  the  Blood  after  the  death  of  Joseph,  called  the  Princess  Dowager 
of  Nazareth." 

This  was  funny,  irreverent,  and  reckless,  and 
shows  a  mind  entirely  out  of  sympathy  with  its 
surroundings.  In  after-years  Franklin  wrote  several 
humorous  parodies  on  the  Scriptures,  but  none  that 
was  quite  so  shocking  to  religious  people  as  this 
one. 

The  Courant,  however,  was  not  again  molested  ; 
but  Franklin  quarrelled  with  his  brother  James,  and 
was  severely  beaten  by  him.  Feeling  that  James 
dare  not  make  public  the  secret  articles  of  appren 
ticeship,  he  resolved  to  leave  him,  and  was  soon  on 
his  way  to  Philadelphia,  as  has  been  already  related. 

He  had  been  at  war  with  the  religion  of  his  native 
province,  and,  though  not  yet  eighteen  years  old,  had 
written  most  violent  attacks  upon  it.  It  is  not  likely 
that  he  would  have  prospered  if  he  had  remained 
in  Boston,  for  the  majority  of  the  people  were  against 
him  and  he  was  entirely  out  of  sympathy  with  the 
prevailing  tone  of  thought.  He  would  have  become 

83 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

a  social  outcast  devoted  to  mere  abuse  and  nega 
tion.  A  hundred  years  afterwards  the  little  party 
of  deists  who  gave  support  to  the  C our  ant  increased 
so  rapidly  that  their  opinions,  under  the  name  of 
Unitarianism,  became  the  most  influential  religion 
of  Massachusetts.*  If  Franklin  had  been  born  in 
that  later  time  he  would  doubtless  have  grown  and 
flourished  on  his  native  soil  along  with  Emerson 
and  Channing,  Lowell  and  Holmes,  and  with  them 
have  risen  to  greatness.  But  previous  to  the  Revo 
lution  his  superb  faculties,  which  required  the 
utmost  liberty  for  their  expansion,  would  have  been 
starved  and  stunted  in  the  atmosphere  of  intolerance 
and  repression  which  prevailed  in  Massachusetts. 

After  he  left  Boston,  his  dislike  for  the  religion  of 
that  place,  and,  indeed,  for  all  revealed  religion, 
seems  to  have  increased.  In  London  we  find  him 
writing  the  pamphlet  "Liberty  and  Necessity," 
described  in  the  previous  chapter,  and  adopting  what 
was  in  effect  the  position  of  Voltaire, — namely,  an 
admission  of  the  existence  of  some  sort  of  God, 
but  a  denial  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  He 
went  even  beyond  Voltaire  in  holding  that,  inas 
much  as  God  was  omnipotent  and  all-wise,  and  had 
created  the  universe,  whatever  existed  must  be  right, 
and  vice  and  virtue  were  empty  distinctions. 

I  have  already  told  how  this  pamphlet  brought 
him  to  the  notice  of  a  certain  Dr.  Lyons,  who  had 
himself  written  a  sceptical  book,  and  who  introduced 
Franklin  to  other  philosophers  of  the  same  sort  who 


*  Men,  Women,  and  Manners  in  Colonial  Times,  vol.  i.  p.  222. 
84 


RELIGION  AND   MORALS 

met  at  an  inn  called  The  Horns.  But,  in  spite  of 
their  influence,  Franklin  began  to  doubt  the  princi 
ples  he  had  laid  down  in  his  pamphlet.  He  had 
gone  so  far  in  negation  that  a  reaction  was  started  in 
his  mind.  He  tore  up  most  of  the  hundred  copies 
of  "Liberty  and  Necessity,"  believing  it  to  be  of 
an  evil  tendency.  Like  most  of  his  writings,  how 
ever,  it  possessed  a  vital  force  of  its  own,  and  some 
one  printed  a  second  edition  of  it. 

His  morals  at  this  time  were,  according  to  his  own 
account,  fairly  good.  He  asserts  that  he  was  neither 
dishonest  nor  unjust,  and  we  can  readily  believe  him, 
for  these  were  not  faults  of  his  character.  In  his 
Autobiography  he  says  that  he  passed  through  this 
dangerous  period  of  his  life  "without  any  willful 
gross  immorality  or  injustice  that  might  have  been 
expected  from  my  want  of  religion."  In  the  first 
draft  of  the  Autobiography  he  added,  "some  fool 
ish  intrigues  with  low  women  excepted,  which  from 
the  expense  were  rather  more  prejudicial  to  me  than 
to  them."  But  in  the  revision  these  words  were 
crossed  out* 

On  the  voyage  from  London  to  Philadelphia  he 
kept  a  journal,  and  in  it  entered  a  plan  which  he 
had  formed  for  regulating  his  future  conduct,  no 
doubt  after  much  reflection  while  at  sea.  Towards 
the  close  of  his  life  he  said  of  it,  "It  is  the  more 
remarkable  as  being  formed  when  I  was  so  young 
and  yet  being  pretty  faithfully  adhered  to  quite 
thro'  to  old  age."  This  plan  was  not  found  in  the 


*  Bigelow's  Works  of  Franklin,  vol.  i.  p.  140. 
85 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

journal,  but  a  paper  which  is  supposed  to  contain 
it  was  discovered  and  printed  by  Parton  in  his  "Life 
of  Franklin. "  It  recommends  extreme  frugality  until 
he  can  pay  his  debts,  truth-telling,  sincerity,  devo 
tion  to  business,  avoidance  of  all  projects  for  be 
coming  suddenly  rich,  with  a  resolve  to  speak  ill  of 
no  man,  but  rather  to  excuse  faults.  Revealed  re 
ligion  had,  he  says,  no  weight  with  him  ;  but  he 
had  become  convinced  that  "truth,  sincerity,  and 
integrity  in  dealings  between  man  and  man  were 
of  the  utmost  importance  to  the  felicity  of  life." 

Although  revealed  religion  seemed  of  no  im 
portance  to  him,  he  had  begun  to  think  that, 
"though  certain  actions  might  not  be  bad  because 
they  were  forbidden  by  it,  or  good  because  it  com 
manded  them,  yet  probably  those  actions  might  be 
forbidden  because  they  were  bad  for  us  or  com 
manded  because  they  were  beneficial  to  us  in  their 
own  natures,  all  the  circumstances  of  things  con 
sidered." 

It  was  in  this  way  that  he  avoided  and  confuted 
his  own  argument  in  the  pamphlet  "  Liberty  and 
Necessity."  He  had  maintained  in  it  that  God  must 
necessarily  have  created  both  good  and  evil.  And  as 
he  had  created  evil,  it  could  not  be  considered  as 
something  contrary  to  his  will,  and  therefore  forbid 
den  and  wrong  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  usually 
described.  If  it  was  contrary  to  his  will  it  could  not 
exist,  for  it  was  impossible  to  conceive  of  an  om 
nipotent  being  allowing  anything  to  exist  contrary 
to  his  will,  and  least  of  all  anything  which  was  evil 
as  well  as  contrary  to  his  will.  What  we  call  evil, 

86 


RELIGION   AND   MORALS 

therefore,  must  be  no  worse  than  good,  because  both 
are  created  by  an  all-wise,  omnipotent  being. 

This  argument  has  puzzled  many  serious  and 
earnest  minds  in  all  ages,  and  Franklin  could  never 
entirely  give  it  up.  But  he  avoided  it  by  saying 
that  "probably"  certain  actions  " might  be  forbid 
den,"  because,  "all  the  circumstances  of  things  con 
sidered,"  they  were  bad  for  us,  or  they  might  be 
commanded  because  they  were  beneficial  to  us.  In 
other  words,  God  created  evil  as  well  as  good  ;  but 
for  some  reason  which  we  do  not  understand  he 
has  forbidden  us  to  do  evil  and  has  commanded  us 
to  do  good.  Or,  he  has  so  arranged  things  that 
what  we  call  evil  is  injurious  to  us  and  what  we 
call  good  is  beneficial  to  us. 

This  was  his  eminently  practical  way  of  solving 
the  great  problem  of  the  existence  of  evil.  It  will  be 
said,  of  course,  that  it  was  simply  exchanging  one 
mystery  for  another,  and  that  one  was  as  incompre 
hensible  as  the  other.  To  which  he  would  probably 
have  replied  that  his  mystery  was  the  pleasanter  one, 
and,  being  less  of  an  empty,  dry  negation  and  giving 
less  encouragement  to  vice,  was  more  comforting  to 
live  under,  "all  the  circumstances  of  things  con 
sidered." 

He  says  that  he  felt  himself  the  more  confirmed 
in  this  course  because  his  old  friends  Collins  and 
Ralph,  whom  he  had  perverted  to  his  first  way  of 
thinking,  went  wrong,  and  injured  him  greatly  with 
out  the  least  compunction.  He  also  recollected  the 
contemptible  conduct  of  Governor  Keith  towards 
him,  and  Keith  was  another  free-thinker.  His  own 

87 


THE   TRUE  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

conduct  while  under  the  influence  of  arguments 
like  those  in  "Liberty  and  Necessity"  had  been  by 
no  means  above  reproach.  He  had  wronged  Miss 
Read,  whose  affections  he  had  won,  and  he  had  em 
bezzled  Mr.  Vernon's  money.  So  he  began  to  sus 
pect,  he  tells  us,  that  his  early  doctrine,  "tho'  it 
might  be  true,  was  not  very  useful." 

When  back  again  in  Philadelphia  and  beginning 
to  prosper  a  little,  he  set  himself  more  seriously  to 
the  task  of  working  out  some  form  of  religion  that 
would  suit  him.  He  must  needs  go  to  the  bottom 
of  the  subject ;  and  in  this,  as  in  other  matters, 
nothing  satisfied  him  unless  he  had  made  it  himself. 
In  the  year  1728,  when  he  was  twenty-two  years 
old,  he  framed  a  creed,  a  most  curious  compound, 
which  can  be  given  no  other  name  than  Franklin's 
creed. 

Having  rejected  his  former  negative  belief  as  not 
sufficiently  practical  for  his  purposes,  and  having  once 
started  creed-building,  he  was  led  on  into  all  sorts 
of  ideas,  which  it  must  be  confessed  were  no  better 
than  those  of  older  creed-makers,  and  as  difficult  to 
believe  as  anything  in  revealed  religion.  But  he 
would  have  none  but  his  own,  and  its  preparation 
was,  of  course,  part  of  that  mental  training  which, 
consciously  or  unconsciously,  was  going  on  all  the 
time. 

He  began  by  saying  that  he  believed  in  one 
Supreme  Being,  the  author  and  father  of  the  gods, — 
for  in  his  system  there  were  beings  superior  to  man, 
though  inferior  to  God.  These  gods,  he  thought, 
were  probably  immortal,  or  possibly  were  changed 

88 


RELIGION  AND   MORALS 

and  others  put  in  their  places.  Each  of  them  had 
a  glorious  sun,  attended  by  a  beautiful  and  admirable 
system  of  planets.  God  the  Infinite  Father,  required 
no  praise  or  worship  from  man,  being  infinitely  above 
it ;  but  as  there  was  a  natural  principle  in  man  which 
inclined  him  to  devotion,  it  seemed  right  that  he 
should  worship  something. 

He  went  on  to  say  that  God  had  in  him  some  of 
the  human  passions,  and  was  "  not  above  caring  for 
us,  being  pleased  with  our  praise  and  offended  when 
we  slight  him  or  neglect  his  glory;"  which  was  a 
direct  contradiction  of  what  he  had  previously  said 
about  the  Creator  being  infinitely  above  praise 
or  worship.  "As  I  should  be  happy,"  says  this 
bumptious  youth  of  twenty- two,  "  to  have  so  wise, 
good,  and  powerful  a  Being  my  friend,  let  me  con 
sider  in  what  manner  I  shall  make  myself  most 
acceptable  to  him." 

This  good  and  powerful  Being  would,  he  thought, 
be  delighted  to  see  him  virtuous,  because  virtue 
makes  men  happy,  and  the  great  Being  would  be 
pleased  to  see  him  happy.  So  he  constructed  a  sort 
of  liturgy,  prefacing  it  with  the  suggestion  that  he 
ought  to  begin  it  with  "a  countenance  that  ex 
presses  a  filial  respect,  mixed  with  a  kind  of  smiling 
that  signifies  inward  joy  and  satisfaction  and  admira 
tion," — a  piece  of  formalism  which  was  rather  worse 
than  anything  that  has  been  invented  by  the  eccle 
siastics  he  so  much  despised.  At  one  point  in  the 
liturgy  he  was  to  sing  Milton's  hymn  to  the  Crea 
tor  ;  at  another  point  "  to  read  part  of  some  such 
book  as  Ray's  Wisdom  of  God  in  the  Creation,  or 

89 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

Blackmore   on   the   Creation."      Then  followed   his 
prayers,  of  which  the  following  are  specimens  : 

"  O  Creator,  O  Father,  I  believe  that  thou  art  Good,  and  that  thou 
art  pleased  with  the  pleasure  of  thy  children. 
"Praised  be  thy  name  for  ever." 

"  That  I  may  be  preserved  from  Atheism,  and  Infidelity,  Impiety 
and  Profaneness,  and,  in  my  Addresses  to  thee  carefully  avoid  Ir 
reverence  and  Ostentation,  Formality  and  odious  Hypocrisy. 

"  Help  me,  O  Father. 

"That  I  may  be  just  in  all  my  Dealings  and  temperate  in  my 
pleasures,  full  of  Candour  and  Ingenuity,  Humanity  and  Benevolence. 
"Help  me,  O  Father." 

He  was  doing  the  best  he  could,  poor  boy!  but 
as  a  writer  of  liturgies  he  was  not  a  success.  His 
own  liturgy,  however,  seems  to  have  suited  him, 
and  it  is  generally  supposed  that  he  used  it  for  a 
great  many  years,  probably  until  he  was  forty  years 
old.  He  had  it  all  written  out  in  a  little  volume, 
which  was,  in  truth,  Franklin's  prayer-book  in  the 
fullest  sense  of  the  word. 

Later  in  life  he  appears  to  have  dropped  the 
eccentric  parts  of  it  and  confined  himself  to  a  more 
simple  statement.  At  exactly  what  period  he  made 
this  change  is  not  known.  But  when  he  was  eighty- 
four  years  old,  and  within  a  few  weeks  of  his  death, 
Ezra  Stiles,  the  President  of  Yale  College,  in  a  letter 
asking  him  to  sit  for  his  portrait  for  the  college, 
requested  his  opinion  on  religion.  In  his  reply 
Franklin  said,  that  as  to  the  portrait  he  was  willing 
it  should  be  painted,  but  the  artist  should  waste  no 
time,  or  the  man  of  eighty-four  might  slip  through 
his  fingers.  He  then  gave  his  creed,  which  was  that 

90 


RELIGION   AND   MORALS 

there  was  one  God,  who  governed  the  world,  who 
should  be  worshipped,  to  whom  the  most  acceptable 
service  was  doing  good  to  man,  and  who  would  deal 
justly  with  the  immortal  souls  of  men. 

"As  to  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  my  opinion  of  whom  you  particularly 
desire,  I  think  his  system  of  morals  and  his  religion,  as  he  left  them 
to  us,  the  best  the  world  ever  saw,  or  is  like  to  see  ;  but  I  apprehend 
it  has  received  various  corrupting  changes,  and  I  have,  with  most  of 
the  present  Dissenters  in  England,  some  doubts  as  to  his  Divinity ; 
though  it  is  a  question  I  do  not  dogmatize  upon,  having  never  studied 
it,  and  think  it  needless  to  busy  myself  with  it  now,  when  I  expect 
soon  an  opportunity  of  knowing  the  truth  with  less  trouble.  I  see 
no  harm,  however,  in  its  being  believed,  if  that  belief  has  the  good 
consequence,  as  probably  it  has,  of  making  his  doctrines  more  re 
spected  and  more  observed  ;  especially  as  I  do  not  perceive  that 
the  Supreme  takes  it  amiss,  by  distinguishing  the  unbelievers  in 
his  government  of  the  world  with  any  peculiar  marks  of  his  dis 
pleasure. 

"  I  shall  only  add,  respecting  myself,  having  experienced  the 
goodness  of  that  Being  in  conducting  me  prosperously  through  a 
long  life,  I  have  no  doubt  of  its  continuance  in  the  next,  though 
without  the  smallest  conceit  of  meriting  such  goodness. 

"P.  S.  I  confide,  that  you  will  not  expose  me  to  criticisms  and 
censures  by  publishing  any  part  of  this  communication  to  you.  I 
have  ever  let  others  enjoy  their  religious  sentiments,  without  reflect 
ing  on  them  for  those  that  appeared  to  me  unsupportable  or  even 
absurd.  All  sects  here,  and  we  have  a  great  variety,  have  experi 
enced  my  good  will  in  assisting  them  with  subscriptions  for  the  build 
ing  their  new  places  of  worship  ;  and,  as  I  have  never  opposed  any 
of  their  doctrines,  I  hope  to  go  out  of  the  world  in  peace  with  them 
all.'' 

So  Franklin's  belief  at  the  close  of  his  life  was 
deism,  which  was  the  same  faith  that  he  had  pro 
fessed  when  a  boy.  From  boyish  deism  he  had 
passed  to  youthful  negation,  and  from  negation 
returned  to  deism  again.  He  also  in  his  old  age 
argued  out  his  belief  in  immortality  from  the  opera- 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLTN 

tions  he  had  observed  in  nature,  where  nothing  is 
lost ;  why  then  should  the  soul  not  live  ? 

In  the  convention  that  framed  the  National  Con 
stitution  in  1787,  when  there  was  great  conflict  of 
opinion  among  the  members  and  it  seemed  doubtful 
whether  an  agreement  could  be  reached,  he  moved 
that  prayers  be  said  by  some  clergyman  every 
morning,  but  the  motion  was  lost.  In  a  general 
way  he  professed  to  favor  all  religions.  A  false 
religion,  he  said,  was  better  than  none  ;  for  if  men 
were  so  bad  with  religion,  what  would  they  be  with 
out  it  ? 

Commenting  on  the  death  of  his  brother  John,  he 
said, — 

"  He  who  plucks  out  a  tooth,  parts  with  it  freely,  since  the  pain 
goes  with  it ;  and  he  who  quits  the  whole  body  parts  at  once  with  all 
pains,  and  possibilities  of  pains  and  diseases,  which  it  was  liable  to 
or  capable  of  making  him  suffer.  Our  friend  and  we  were  invited 
abroad  on  a  party  of  pleasure,  which  is  to  last  forever.  His  chair 
was  ready  first,  and  he  is  gone  before  us.  We  could  not  all  con 
veniently  start  together ;  and  why  should  you  and  I  be  grieved  at 
this,  since  we  are  soon  to  follow  and  know  where  to  find  him  ?" 

He  not  infrequently  expressed  his  views  on  the 
future  life  in  a  light  vein  : 

"  With  regard  to  future  bliss,  I  cannot  help  imagining  that  multi 
tudes  of  the  zealously  orthodox  of  different  sects  who  at  the  last  day 
may  flock  together  in  hopes  of  seeing  each  other  damned,  will  be 
disappointed  and  obliged  to  rest  content  with  their  own  salvation." 

His  wife  was  an  Episcopalian,  a  member  of  Christ 
Church  in  Philadelphia,  and  he  always  encouraged 
her,  as  well  as  his  daughter,  to  attend  the  services 
of  that  church. 

92 


RELIGION  AND   MORALS 

"  Go  constantly  to  church,"  he  wrote  to  his  daughter  after  he  had 
started  on  one  of  his  missions  to  England,  "  whoever  preaches.  The 
act  of  devotion  in  the  common  prayer  book  is  your  principal  business 
there,  and  if  properly  attended  to,  will  do  more  towards  mending  the 
heart  than  sermons  generally  can  do.  For  they  were  composed  by 
men  of  much  greater  piety  and  wisdom  than  our  common  composers 
of  sermons  can  pretend  to  be  ;  and  therefore,  I  wish  you  would 
never  miss  the  prayer  days  ;  yet  I  do  not  mean  that  you  should  de 
spise  sermons  even  of  the  preachers  you  dislike  ;  for  the  discourse 
is  often  much  better  than  the  man,  as  sweet  and  clear  waters  come 
through  very  dirty  earth." 

It  does  not  appear  that  he  himself  attended  the 
services  of  Christ  Church,  for  to  the  end  of  his  life 
he  was  always  inclined  to  use  Sunday  as  a  day  for 
study,  as  he  had  done  when  a  boy.  At  one  time, 
soon  after  he  had  adopted  his  curious  creed,  he  was 
prevailed  upon  to  attend  the  preaching  of  a  Presby 
terian  minister  for  five  Sundays  successively.  But 
finding  that  this  preacher  devoted  himself  entirely 
to  the  explanation  of  doctrine  instead  of  morals,  he 
left  him,  and  returned,  he  says,  to  his  own  little 
liturgy. 

Not  long  afterwards  another  Presbyterian  preacher, 
a  young  man  named  Hemphill,  came  to  Philadelphia, 
and  as  he  was  very  eloqueijt  and  expounded  mo 
rality  rather  than  doctrine,  Franklin  was  completely 
captivated,  and  became  one  of  his  regular  hearers. 
We  would  naturally  suppose  that  a  Presbyterian 
minister  able  to  secure  the  attention  of  Franklin 
was  not  altogether  orthodox,  and  such  proved  to 
be  the  case.  He  was  soon  tried  by  the  synod  for 
wandering  from  the  faith.  Franklin  supported  him, 
wrote  pamphlets  in  his  favor,  and  secured  for  him 
the  support  of  others.  But  it  was  soon  discovered 

93 


THE   TRUE  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

that  the  sermons  of  the  eloquent  young  man  had 
all  been  stolen  from  a  volume  published  in  England. 
This  was,  of  course,  the  end  of  him,  and  he  lost 
all  his  adherents  except  Franklin,  who  humorously 
insisted  that  he  "  rather  approved  of  his  giving  us 
sermons  composed  by  others,  than  bad  ones  of  his 
own  manufacture  ;  though  the  latter  was  the  practice 
of  our  common  teachers." 

Whitefield,  the  great  preacher  who  towards  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  started  such  a  re 
vival  of  religion  in  all  the  colonies,  was,  of  course,  a 
man  of  too  much  ability  to  escape  the  serious  regard 
of  Franklin,  who  relates  that  he  attended  one  of  his 
sermons,  fully  resolved  not  to  contribute  to  the  col 
lection  at  the  close  of  it.  "  I  had  in  my  pocket," 
he  says,  "a  handful  of  copper  money,  three  or 
four  silver  dollars,  and  five  pistoles  in  gold.  As  he 
proceeded,  I  began  to  soften  and  concluded  to  give 
him  the  copper.  Another  stroke  of  his  oratory  made 
me  ashamed  of  that,  and  determined  me  to  give  the 
silver  ;  and  he  finished  so  admirably,  that  I  emptied 
my  pocket  wholly  into  the  collector's  dish,  gold  and 
all." 

This  seems  to  have  been  the  only  time  that 
Franklin  was  carried  away  by  preaching.  On  an 
other  occasion,  when  Whitefield  was  preaching  in 
Market  Street,  Philadelphia,  Franklin,  instead  of 
listening  to  the  sermon,  employed  himself  in  esti 
mating  the  size  of  the  crowd  and  the  power  of  the 
orator's  voice.  He  had  often  doubted  what  he  had 
read  of  generals  haranguing  whole  armies,  but  when 
he  found  that  Whitefield  could  easily  preach  to 

94 


RELIGION  AND   MORALS 

thirty  thousand  people  and  be  heard  by  them  all, 
he  was  less  inclined  to  be  incredulous. 

He  and  Whitefield  became  fast  friends,  and 
Whitefield  stayed  at  his  house.  In  replying  to  his 
invitation  to  visit  him,  Whitefield  answered,  "If 
you  make  that  offer  for  Christ's  sake,  you  will  not 
miss  of  the  reward."  To  which  the  philosopher 
replied,  "Don't  let  me  be  mistaken  ;  it  was  not  for 
Christ's  sake,  but  for  your  sake."  Whitefield  often 
prayed  for  his  host's  conversion,  but  "never,"  says 
Franklin,  "had  the  satisfaction  of  believing  that  his 
prayers  were  heard." 

He  admitted  that  Whitefield  had  an  enormous 
influence,  and  that  the  light-minded  and  indifferent 
became  religious  as  the  result  of  his  revivals.  Whether 

O 

the  religion  thus  acquired  was  really  lasting  he  has 
not  told  us.  He  was  the  publisher  of  Whitefield's 
sermons  and  journals,  of  which  great  numbers  were 
sold  ;  but  he  thought  that  their  publication  was  an 
injury  to  their  author's  reputation,  which  depended 
principally  upon  his  wonderful  voice  and  delivery. 
He  commented  in  his  bright  way  on  a  sentence  in 
the  journal  which  said  that  there  was  no  difference 
between  a  deist  and  an  atheist.  "  M.  B.  is  a  deist," 
Whitefield  said,  "  I  had  almost  said  an  atheist" 
"  He  might  as  well  have  written,"  said  Franklin, 
"  chalk,  I  had  almost  said  charcoal." 

In  spite  of  his  deism  and  his  jokes  about  sacred 
things,  he  enjoyed  most  friendly  and  even  influen 
tial  relations  with  religious  people,  who  might  have 
been  supposed  to  have  a  horror  of  him.  His  con 
ciliatory  manner,  dislike  of  disputes,  and  general 

95 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

philanthropy  led  each  sect  to  suppose  that  he  was 
on  its  side,  and  he  made  a  practice  of  giving  money 
to  them  all  without  distinction.  John  Adams  said 
of  him, — 

"The  Catholics  thought  him  almost  a  Catholic.  The  Church  of 
England  claimed  him  as  one  of  them.  The  Presbyterians  thought 
him  half  a  Presbyterian,  and  the  Friends  believed  him  a  wet 
Quaker." 

When  in  England  he  was  the  intimate  friend  of 
the  Bishop  of  St.  Asaph,  stayed  at  his  house,  and 
corresponded  in  the  most  affectionate  way  with  the 
bishop's  daughters.  At  the  outbreak  of  the  Revo 
lution  he  was  sent  to  Canada  in  company  with  the 
Rev.  John  Carroll,  of  Maryland,  in  the  hope  of  win 
ning  over  that  country  to  the  side  of  the  revolted 
colonies.  His  tendency  to  form  strong  attachments 
for  religious  people  again  showed  itself,  and  he  and 
Carroll,  who  was  a  Roman  Catholic  priest,  became 
life-long  friends.  Eight  years  afterwards,  in  1784, 
when  he  was  minister  to  France,  finding  that  the 
papal  nuncio  was  reorganizing  the  Catholic  Church 
in  America,  he  urged  him  to  make  Carroll  a  bishop. 
The  suggestion  was  adopted,  and  the  first  Roman 
Catholic  bishop  of  the  United  States  owed  his  ele 
vation  to  the  influence  of  a  deist. 

At  the  same  time  the  members  of  the  Church  of 
England  in  the  successfully  revolted  colonies  were 
adapting  themselves  to  the  new  order  of  things ;  but, 
having  no  bishops,  their  clergy  were  obliged  to 
apply  to  the  English  bishops  for  ordination.  They 
were,  of  course,  refused,  and  two  of  them  applied  to 

96 


RELIGION  AND   MORALS 

Franklin,  who  was  then  in  Paris,  for  advice.  It  was 
strange  that  they  should  have  consulted  the  philoso 
pher,  who  regarded  bishops  and  ordinations  as  mere 
harmless  delusions.  But  he  was  a  very  famous  man, 
the  popular  representative  of  their  country,  and  of 
proverbial  shrewdness. 

He  suggested — doubtless  with  a  sly  smile — that 
the  Pope's  nuncio  should  ordain  them.  The  nuncio, 
though  their  theological  enemy,  believed  in  the 
pretty  delusion  as  well  as  they,  and  his  ordination 
would  be  as  valid  as  that  of  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury.  He  asked  the  nuncio,  with  whom  he 
was  no  doubt  on  terms  of  jovial  intimacy,  if  he 
would  do  it ;  but  that  functionary  was  of  course 
obliged  to  say  that  such  a  thing  was  impossible, 
unless  the  gentlemen  should  first  become  Roman 
Catholics.  So  the  philosopher  had  another  laugh 
over  the  vain  controversies  of  man. 

He  carried  on  the  joke  by  telling  them  to  try  the 
Irish  bishops,  and,  if  unsuccessful,  the  Danish  and 
Swedish.  If  they  were  refused,  which  was  likely,  for 
human  folly  was  without  end,  let  them  imitate  the 
ancient  clergy  of  Scotland,  who,  having  built  their 
Cathedral  of  St.  Andrew,  wanted  to  borrow  some 
bishops  from  the  King  of  Northumberland  to  ordain 
them  a  bishop  for  themselves.  The  king  would  lend 
them  none.  So  they  laid  the  mitre,  crosier,  and 
robes  of  a  bishop  on  the  altar,  and,  after  earnest 
prayers  for  guidance,  elected  one  of  their  own  mem 
bers.  "Arise,"  they  said  to  him,  "  go  to  the  altar 
and  receive  your  office  at  the  hand  of  God,"  And 
thus  he  became  the  first  bishop  of  Scotland.  "  If 
7  97 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

the  British  isles,"  said  Franklin,  "were  sunk  in  the 
sea  (and  the  surface  of  this  globe  has  suffered  greater 
changes)  you  would  probably  take  some  such  method 
as  this."  And  so  he  went  on  enlarging  on  the  topic 
until  he  had  a  capital  story  to  tell  Madame  Helvetius 
the  next  time  they  flirted  and  dined  together  in  their 
learned  way. 

But  his  most  notable  escapade  in  religion,  and 
one  in  which  his  sense  of  humor  seems  to  have 
failed  him,  was  his  abridgment  of  the  Church  of 
England's  "  Book  of  Common  Prayer."  It  seems 
that  in  the  year  1772,  while  in  England  as  a  repre 
sentative  of  the  colonies,  he  visited  the  country-seat 
of  Sir  Francis  Dashwood,  Lord  le  Despencer,  a  re 
formed  rake  who  had  turned  deist  and  was  taking 
a  gentlemanly  interest  in  religion.  He  had  been,  it 
is  said,  a  companion  of  John  Wilkes,  Bubb  Dod- 
dington,  Paul  Whitehead,  the  Earl  of  Sandwich,  and 
other  reckless  characters  who  established  themselves 
as  an  order  of  monks  at  Medmenham  Abbey,  where 
they  held  mock  religious  ceremonies,  and  where  the 
trial  of  the  celebrated  Chevalier  D'Eon  was  held 
to  prove  his  disputed  sex.  An  old  book,  called 
"  Chrysal,  or  the  Adventures  of  a  Guinea,"  professes 
to  describe  the  doings  of  these  lively  blades. 

Lord  Despencer  and  Franklin  decided  that  the 
prayer-book  was  entirely  too  long.  Its  prolixity 
kept  people  from  going  to  church.  The  aged  and 
infirm  did  not  like  to  sit  so  long  in  cold  churches 
in  winter,  and  even  the  young  and  sinful  might  attend 
more  willingly  if  the  service  were  shorter. 

Franklin  was  already  a  dabster  at  liturgies.  Had 
98 


RELIGION   AND   MORALS 

he  not,  when  only  twenty-two,  written  his  own  creed 
and  liturgy,  compounded  of  mythology  and  Chris 
tianity  ?  and  had  he  not  afterwards,  as  is  supposed, 
assisted  David  Williams  to  prepare  the  "  Apology 
for  Professing  the  Religion  of  Nature,"  with  a  most 
reasonable  and  sensible  liturgy  annexed?  Lord 
Despencer  had  also  had  a  little  practice  in  such  mat 
ters  in  his  mock  religious  rites  at  the  old  abbey. 
Franklin,  who  was  very  fond  of  him,  tells  of  the  de 
lightful  days  he  spent  at  his  country-seat,  and  adds, 
"  But  a  pleasanter  thing  is  the  kind  countenance,  the 
facetious  and  very  intelligent  conversation  of  mine 
host,  who  having  been  for  many  years  engaged  .in 
public  affairs,  seen  all  parts  of  Europe,  and  kept  the 
best  company  in  the  world,  is  himself  the  best  ex 
isting."  *  I  have  no  doubt  that  his  lordship's  ex 
perience  had  been  a  varied  one ;  but  it  is  a  question 
whether  it  was  of  such  a  character  as  to  fit  him  for 
prayer-book  revision.  He,  however,  went  seriously 
to  work,  and  revised  all  of  the  book  except  the  cate 
chism  and  the  reading  and  singing  psalms,  which  he 
requested  Franklin  to  abridge  for  him. 

The  copy  which  this  precious  pair  went  over  and 
marked  with  a  pen  is  now  in  the  possession  of  Mr. 
Howard  Edwards,  of  Philadelphia,  and  is  a  most 
interesting  relic.  From  this  copy  Lord  Despencer 
had  the  abridgment  printed  at  his  own  expense  ; 
but  it  attracted  no  attention  in  England.  All  refer 
ences  to  the  sacraments  and  to  the  divinity  of  the 
Saviour  were,  of  course,  stricken  out  and  short  work 


Bigelow's  Works  of  Franklin,  vol.  v.  p.  209. 
99 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

made  of  the  Athanasian  and  the  Apostles'  Creed. 
Even  the  commandments  in  the  catechism  had  the 
pen  drawn  through  them,  which  was  rather  incon 
sistent  with  the  importance  that  Franklin  attached 
to  morals  as  against  dogma.  But  both  editors,  no 
doubt,  had  painful  recollections  on  this  subject ;  and 
as  Franklin  would  have  been  somewhat  embarrassed 
by  the  seventh,  he  settled  the  question  by  disposing 
of  them  all. 

The  most  curious  mutilation,  however,  was  in  the 
Te  Deum,  most  of  which  was  struck  out,  pre 
sumably  by  Lord  Despencer.  The  Venite  was  treated 
in  a  similar  way  by  Franklin.  The  beautiful  can 
ticle,  "  All  ye  Works  of  the  Lord,"  which  is  some 
times  used  in  place  of  the  Te  Deum,  was  entirely 
marked  out.  As  this  canticle  is  the  nearest  ap 
proach  in  the  prayer-book  to  anything  like  the  re 
ligion  ot  nature,  it  is  strange  that  it  should  have  suf 
fered.  But  Franklin,  though  of  picturesque  life  and 
character,  interested  in  music  as  a  theory,  a  writer 
of  verse  as  an  exercise,  and  a  lover  of  the  har 
mony  of  a  delicately  balanced  prose  sentence,  had, 
nevertheless,  not  the  faintest  trace  of  poetry  in  his 
nature. 

The  book,  which  is  now  a  very  rare  and  costly  relic, 
a  single  copy  selling  for  over  a  thousand  dollars, 
was  known  in  America  as  "  Franklin's  Prayer-Book," 
and  he  was  usually  credited  with  the  whole  revision, 
although  he  expressly  declared  in  a  letter  on  the  sub 
ject  that  he  had  abridged  only  the  catechism  and  the 
reading  and  singing  psalms.  But  he  seems  to  have 
approved  of  the  whole  work,  for  he  wrote  the  preface 

100 


1  Li*5rjr»sl>vK<* 


RELIGION  AND   MORALS 

which  explains  the  alterations.  A  few  years  after 
the  Revolution,  when  the  American  Church  was  re 
organizing  itself,  the  "Book  of  Common  Prayer" 
was  revised  and  abbreviated  by  competent  hands  ; 
and  from  a  letter  written  by  Bishop  White  it  would 
seem  that  he  had  examined  the  "  Franklin  Prayer- 
Book,"  and  was  willing  to  adopt  its  arrangement  of 
the  calendar  of  holy  days.* 

The  preface  which  Franklin  wrote  for  the  abridg 
ment  was  an  exquisitely  pious  little  essay.  It  was 
written  as  though  coming  from  Lord  Despencer,  "  a 
Protestant  of  the  Church  of  England,"  and  a  "sin 
cere  lover  of  social  worship."  His  lordship  also 
held  "  in  the  highest  veneration  the  doctrines  of 
Jesus  Christ,"  which  was  a  gratifying  assurance. 

When  Franklin  was  about  twenty-two  or  twenty- 
three  and  wrote  his  curious  creed  and  liturgy,  he 
seems  to  have  been  in  that  not  altogether  desirable 
state  of  mind  which  is  sometimes  vulgarly  described 
as  "getting  religion."  He  was  not  the  sort  of  man 
to  be  carried  away  by  one  of  those  religious  revival 
excitements  of  which  we  have  seen  so  many  in  our 
time,  but  he  was  as  near  that  state  as  a  person  of 
his  intellect  could  be. 

Preaching  to  him  and  direct  effort  at  his  conver 
sion  would,  of  course,  have  had  no  effect  on  such 
an  original  disposition.  The  revival  which  he  ex 
perienced  was  one  which  he  started  for  himself,  and, 
besides  his  creed  and  liturgy,  it  consisted  of  an 
attempt  to  arrive  at  moral  perfection. 


*  H.  W.  Smith's  Life  of  Rev.  William  Smith,  vol.  ii.  p.  174. 
101 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

"  I  wished  to  live,"  he  says,  "  without  committing  any  fault  at  any 
time ;  I  would  conquer  all  that  either  natural  inclination,  custom,  or 
company  might  lead  me  into.  As  1  knew  or  thought  I  knew  what 
was  right  and  wrong,  I  did  not  see  why  I  might  not  always  do  the 
one  and  avoid  the  other." 

So  he  prepared  his  moral  code  of  all  the  virtues 
he  thought  necessary,  with  his  comments  thereon, 
and  it  speaks  for  itself : 

"  I.  TEMPERANCE. — Eat  not  to  dullness  ;  drink  not  to  elevation. 

"2.  SILENCE. — Speak  not  but  what  may  benefit  others  or  your 
self;  avoid  trifling  conversation. 

"3.  ORDER. — Let  all  your  things  have  their  places;  let  each 
part  of  your  business  have  its  time. 

"4.  RESOLUTION. — Resolve  to  perform  what  you  ought;  per 
form  without  fail  what  you  resolve. 

"5.  FRUGALITY. — Make  no  expense  but  to  do  good  to  others 
or  yourself ;  i.  e.  waste  nothing. 

"6.  INDUSTRY. — Lose  no  time;  be  always  employed  in  some 
thing  useful ;  cut  off  all  unnecessary  actions. 

"7.  SINCERITY. — Use  no  hurtful  deceit;  think  innocently  and 
justly ;  and  if  you  speak,  speak  accordingly. 

"8.  JUSTICE. — Wrong  none  by  doing  injuries  or  omitting  the 
benefits  that  are  your  duty. 

"9.  MODERATION. — Avoid  extremes;  forbear  resenting  injuries 
so  much  as  you  think  they  deserve. 

"  10.  CLEANLINESS. — Tolerate  no  uncleanliness  in  body,  clothes, 
or  habitation. 

"II.  TRANQUILLITY. — Be  not  disturbed  at  trifles,  or  at  acci 
dents  common  or  unavoidable. 

"12.  CHASTITY. — Rarely  use  venery  but  for  health  or  offspring, 
never  to  dullness,  weakness,  or  the  injury  of  your  own  or  another's 
peace  or  reputation. 

"  13.  HUMILITY. — Imitate  Jesus  and  Socrates." 

He  thought  that  he  could  gradually  acquire  the 
habit  of  keeping  all  these  virtues,  and  instead  of  at 
tempting  the  whole  at  once,  he  fixed  his  attention 
on  one  at  a  time,  and  when  he  thought  he  was 

102 


RELIGION  AND   MORALS 

master  of  that,  proceeded  to  the  next,  and  so  on. 
He  had  arranged  them  in  the  order  he  thought 
would  most  facilitate  their  gradual  acquisition,  be 
ginning  with  temperance  and  proceeding  to  silence ; 
for  the  mastery  of  those  which  were  easiest  would 
help  him  to  attain  the  more  difficult  He  has,  there 
fore,  left  us  at  liberty  to  judge  which  were  his  most 
persistent  sins. 

He  had  a  little  book  with  a  page  for  each  virtue, 
and  columns  arranged  for  the  days  of  the  week,  so 
that  he  could  give  himself  marks  for  failure  or  suc 
cess.  He  began  by  devoting  a  week  to  each  virtue, 
by  which  arrangement  he  could  go  through  the  com 
plete  course  in  thirteen  weeks,  or  four  courses  in  a 
year. 

His  intense  moral  earnestness  and  introspection 
were  doubtless  inherited  from  his  New  England 
origin.  But  when  he  was  in  the  midst  of  all  this 
creed- and  code-making,  he  records  of  himself: 

"  That  hard  to  be  governed  passion  of  youth  had  hurried  me  fre 
quently  into  intrigues  with  low  women  that  fell  in  my  way,  which 
were  attended  with  some  expense  and  great  inconvenience,  besides 
a  continual  risk  to  my  health  by  a  distemper,  which  of  all  things  I 
dreaded,  though  by  great  good  luck  I  escaped  it." 

His  biographer,  Parton,  reminds  us  that  his  liturgy 
has  no  prayer  against  this  vice,  and  that  about  a  year 
after  the  date  of  the  liturgy  his  illegitimate  son  Wil 
liam  was  born.  The  biographer  then  goes  on  to  say 
that  Franklin  was  "  too  sincere  and  logical  a  man  to 
go  before  his  God  and  ask  assistance  against  a  fault 
which  he  had  not  fully  resolved  to  overcome." 

103 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

There  is,  however,  a  prayer  in  the  liturgy  against 
lasciviousness.  He  had  not  yet  paid  Mr.  Vernon  the 
money  he  had  embezzled,  although  he  was  the  author 
of  a  prayer  asking  to  be  delivered  from  deceit  and 
fraud,  and  another  against  unfaithfulness  in  trust* 

It  is  obvious  that  this  inconsistency  is  very  like 
human  nature,  especially  youthful  human  nature. 
There  is  nothing  wonderful  in  it.  It  was  simply  the 
struggle  which  often  takes  place  in  boys  who  are 
both  physically  and  mentally  strong.  The  only  thing 
unusual  is  that  the  person  concerned  has  made  a 
complete  revelation  of  it.  Such  things  are  gen 
erally  deeply  concealed  from  the  public.  But  that 
curious  frankness  which  was  mingled  with  Frank 
lin's  astuteness  has  in  his  own  case  opened  wide  the 
doors. 

It  has  been  commonly  stated  in  his  biographies 
that  he  had  but  one  illegitimate  child,  a  son  ;  but 
from  a  manuscript  letter  in  the  possession  of  the 
Pennsylvania  Historical  Society,  written  by  John 
Foxcroft,  February  2,  1772,  and  never  heretofore 
printed,  it  appears  that  he  had  also  an  illegitimate 
daughter,  married  to  John  Foxcroft : 

"  PHILAD*  Feby  2d,  1772. 
"DEAR  SIR 

"  I  have  the  happiness  to  acquaint  you  that  your  Daughter  was 
safely  brot  to  Bed  the  2Qth  ulto  and  presented  me  with  a  sweet  little 
girl,  they  are  both  in  good  spirits  and  are  likely  to  do  very  well. 

"  I  was  seized  with  a  Giddyness  in  my  head  the  Day  before  yes 
terday  wch  alarms  me  a  good  deal  as  I  had  20  oz  of  blood  taken 

*  Some  years  afterwards,  when  he  had  become  prosperous,  he  re 
stored  the  money  to  Mr.  Vernon,  with  interest  to  date. 

104 


JOHN    FOXCROFT 


RELIGION  AND   MORALS 

from  ine  and  took  physick  wch  does  not  seem  in  the  least  to  hare 
relieved  me. 

"I  am  hardly  able  to  write  this.  Mrs  F  joins  me  in  best  affec 
tions  to  yourself  and  compts  to  Mrs  Stevenson  and  Mr  and  Mrs 
Huson. 

"  I  am  Dr  Sir 

"Yrs.  affectionately 

"JOHN  FOXCROFT. 

"  Mrs  Franklin,  Mrs  Bache,  little  Ben  &  Family  at  Burlingtoii 
are  all  well.  I  had  a  letter  from  ye  Govr  yesterday  J.  F." 

Among  the  Franklin  papers  in  the  State  Depart 
ment  at  Washington  there  are  copies  of  a  number 
of  letters  which  Franklin  wrote  to  Foxcroft,  and  in 
three  of  them — October  J ,  1772,  November  3,  1772, 
and  March  3,  1773 — he  sends  "love  to  my  daugh 
ter."  There  is  also  in  Bigelow's  edition  of  his 
works*  a  letter  in  which  he  refers  to  Mrs.  Foxcroft 
as  his  daughter.  The  letter  I  have  quoted  above 
was  written  while  Franklin  was  in  England  as  the 
representative  of  some  of  the  colonies,  and  is  ad 
dressed  to  him  at  his  Craven  Street  lodgings.  Fox 
croft,  who  was  postmaster  of  Philadelphia,  seems  to 
have  been  on  friendly  terms  with  the  rest  of  Frank 
lin's  family. 

Mrs.  Bache,  whom  Foxcroft  mentions  in  the 
letter,  was  Franklin's  legitimate  daughter,  Sarah, 
who  was  married.  The  family  at  Burlington  was 
the  family  of  the  illegitimate  son,  William,  who  was 
the  royal  governor  of  New  Jersey.  This  extraordi 
narily  mixed  family  of  legitimates  and  illegitimates 
seems  to  have  maintained  a  certain  kind  of  harmony. 

*  Vol.  v.  p.  201. 
105 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

The  son  William,  the  governor,  continued  the  line 
through  an  illegitimate  son,  William  Temple  Frank 
lin,  usually  known  as  Temple  Franklin.  This  con 
dition  of  affairs  enables  us  to  understand  the  odium 
in  which  Franklin  was  held  by  many  of  the  upper 
classes  of  Philadelphia,  even  when  he  was  well  re 
ceived  by  the  best  people  in  England  and  France. 

In  his  writings  we  constantly  find  him  encouraging 
early  marriages ;  and  he  complains  of  the  great 
number  of  bachelors  and  old  maids  in  England. 
"The  accounts  you  give  me,"  he  writes  to  his  wife, 
"  of  the  marriages  of  our  friends  are  very  agreeable. 
I  love  to  hear  of  everything  that  tends  to  increase 
the  number  of  good  people."  He  certainly  lived 
up  to  his  doctrine,  and  more. 

"Men  I  find  to  be  a  sort  of  beings  very  badly  constructed,  as 
they  are  generally  more  easily  provoked  than  reconciled,  more  dis 
posed  to  do  mischief  to  each  other  than  to  make  reparation,  much 
more  easily  deceived  than  undeceived,  and  having  more  pride  and 
even  pleasure  in  killing  than  in  begetting  one  another  ;  for  without 
a  blush  they  assemble  in  great  armies  at  noonday  to  destroy,  and 
when  they  have  killed  as  many  as  they  can  they  exaggerate  the 
number  to  augment  the  fancied  glory ;  but  they  creep  into  corners 
or  cover  themselves  with  the  darkness  of  night  when  they  mean  to 
beget,  as  being  ashamed  of  a  virtuous  action."  (Bigelow's  Works 
of  Franklin,  vol.  vii.  p.  464.) 

There  has  always  been  much  speculation  as  to 
who  was  the  mother  of  Franklin's  son,  William,  the 
governor  of  New  Jersey  ;  but  as  the  gossips  of  Phil 
adelphia  were  never  able  to  solve  the  mystery,  it  is 
hardly  possible  that  the  antiquarians  can  succeed. 
Theodore  Parker  assumed  that  he  must  have  been 
the  son  of  a  girl  whom  Franklin  would  have  mar- 

106 


RELIGION   AND   MORALS 

ried  if  her  parents  had  consented.  Her  name  is 
unknown,  for  Franklin  merely  describes  her  as  a 
relative  of  Mrs.  Godfrey,  who  tried  to  make  the 
match.  Parker  had  no  evidence  whatever  for  his 
supposition.  He  merely  thought  it  likely ;  and,  as 
a  Christian  minister,  it  would  perhaps  have  been 
more  to  his  credit  if  he  had  abstained  from  attack 
ing  in  this  way  the  reputation  of  even  an  unnamed 
young  woman.  An  English  clergyman,  Rev.  Ben- 
net  Allen,  writing  in  the  London  Morning  Post,  June 
i,  1779,  when  the  ill  feeling  of  the  Revolution  was 
at  its  height,  says  that  William's  mother  was  an 
oyster  wench,  whom  Franklin  left  to  die  of  disease 
and  hunger  in  the  streets.  The  gossips,  indeed, 
seem  to  have  always  agreed  that  the  woman  must 
have  been  of  very  humble  origin. 

The  nearest  approach  to  a  discovery  has,  however, 
been  made  by  Mr.  Paul  Leicester  Ford,  in  his  essay 
entitled  "Who  was  the  Mother  of  Franklin's  Son?" 
He  found  an  old  pamphlet  written  during  Frank 
lin's  very  heated  controversy  with  the  proprietary 
party  in  Pennsylvania  when  the  attempt  was  made 
to  abolish  the  proprietorship  of  the  Penn  family  and 
make  the  colony  a  royal  province.  The  pamphlet, 
entitled  "What  is  Sauce  for  a  Goose  is  also  Sauce 
for  a  Gander,"  after  some  general  abuse  of  Franklin, 
says  that  the  mother  of  his  son  was  a  woman  named 
Barbara,  who  worked  in  his  house  as  a  servant  for 
ten  pounds  a  year ;  that  he  kept  her  in  that  position 
until  her  death,  when  he  stole  her  to  the  grave  in 
silence  without  a  pall,  tomb,  or  monument.  This  is, 
of  course,  a  partisan  statement  only,  and  reiterates 

107 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

what  was  probably  the  current  gossip  of  the  time 
among  Franklin's  political  opponents. 

There  have  also  been  speculations  in  Philadelphia 
as  to  who  was  the  mother  of  Franklin's  daughter, 
the  wife  of  John  Foxcroft ;  but  they  are  mere  guesses 
unsupported  by  evidence. 

From  what  Franklin  has  told  us  of  the  advice 
given  him  when  a  young  man  by  a  Quaker  friend, 
he  was  at  that  time  exceedingly  proud,  and  also  occa 
sionally  overbearing  and  insolent,  and  this  is  con 
firmed  by  various  passages  in  his  early  life.  But  in 
after-years  he  seems  to  have  completely  conquered 
these  faults.  He  complains,  however,  that  he  never 
could  acquire  the  virtue  of  order  in  his  business, 
having  a  place  for  everything  and  everything  in  its 
place.  This  failing  seems  to  have  followed  him  to 
the  end  of  his  life,  and  was  one  of  the  serious  com 
plaints  made  against  him  when  he  was  ambassador 
to  France. 

But  he  believed  himself  immensely  benefited  by  his 
moral  code  and  his  method  of  drilling  himself  in  it. 

"  It  may  be  well  my  posterity  should  be  informed  that  to  this  little 
artifice,  with  the  blessing  of  God,  their  ancestor  owed  the  constant 
felicity  of  his  life,  down  to  his  jgth  year  in  which  this  is  written.  .  .  . 
To  Temperance  he  ascribes  his  long  continued  health,  and  what  is 
still  left  to  him  of  a  good  constitution  ;  to  Industry  and  Frugality,  the 
early  easiness  of  his  circumstances  and  acquisition  of  his  fortune, 
with  all  that  knowledge  that  enabled  him  to  be  a  useful  citizen,  and 
obtained  for  him  some  degree  of  reputation  among  the  learned  ;  to 
Sincerity  and  Justice,  the  confidence  of  his  country,  and  the  honor 
able  employs  it  conferred  upon  him  ;  and  to  the  joint  influence  of 
the  whole  mass  of  the  virtues,  even  in  the  imperfect  state  he  was 
able  to  acquire  then,  all  that  evenness  of  temper  and  that  cheerfulness 
in  conversation,  which  makes  his  company  still  sought  for  and  agree 
able  even  to  his  younger  acquaintances." 

1 08 


WILLIAM    FRANKLIN. 


ROYAL    GOVERNOR   OF    NEW   JERSEY 


RELIGION   AND   MORALS 

At  the  same  time  that  he  was  trying  to  put  into 
practice  his  moral  code,  he  conceived  the  idea  of 
writing  a  book  called  "The  Art  of  Virtue,"  in  which 
he  was  to  make  comments  on  all  the  virtues,  and 
show  how  each  could  be  acquired.  Most  treatises 
of  this  sort,  he  had  observed,  were  mere  exhortations 
to  be  good  ;  but  "  The  Art  of  Virtue"  would  point 
out  the  means.  He  collected  notes  and  hints  for  this 
volume  during  many  years,  intending  that  it  should 
be  the  most  important  work  of  his  life  ;  "a  great  and 
extensive  project,"  he  calls  it,  into  which  he  would 
throw  the  whole  force  of  his  being,  and  he  expected 
great  results  from  it.  He  looked  forward  to  the  time 
when  he  could  drop  everything  else  and  devote  him 
self  to  this  mighty  project,  and  he  received  grandilo 
quent  letters  of  encouragement  from  eminent  men. 
His  vast  experience  of  life  would  have  made  it  a 
fascinating  volume,  and  it  is  to  be  regretted  that 
public  employments  continually  called  him  to  other 
tasks. 

A  young  man  such  as  he  was  is  not  infrequently 
able  to  improve  his  morals  more  effectually  by  mar 
rying  than  by  writing  liturgies  and  codes.  He 
decided  to  marry  about  two  years  after  he  had 
begun  to  discipline  himself  in  his  creed  and  moral 
precepts.  The  step  seems  to  have  been  first  sug 
gested  to  him  by  Mrs.  Godfrey,  to  whom,  with  her 
husband,  he  rented  part  of  his  house  and  shop.  She 
had  a  relative  who,  she  thought,  would  make  a  good 
match  for  him,  and  she  took  opportunities  of  bring 
ing  them  often  together.  The  girl  was  deserving, 
and  Franklin  began  to  court  her.  But  he  has  de- 

109 


THE   TRUE  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

scribed  the  affair  so  well  himself  that  it  would  be 
useless  to  try  to  abbreviate  it. 

"  The  old  folks  encouraged  me  by  continual  invitations  to  supper, 
and  by  leaving  us  together,  till  at  length  it  was  time  to  explain.  Mrs. 
Godfrey  managed  our  little  treaty.  I  let  her  know  that  I  expected  as 
much  money  with  their  daughter  as  would  pay  off  my  remaining 
debt  for  the  printing-house,  which  I  believe  was  not  then  above  a 
hundred  pounds.  She  brought  me  word  they  had  no  such  sum  to 
spare  ;  I  said  they  might  mortgage  their  house  in  the  loan  office. 
The  answer  to  this,  after  some  days,  was,  that  they  did  not  approve 
the  match ;  that,  on  inquiry  of  Bradford,  they  had  been  informed 
the  printing  business  was  not  a  profitable  one  ;  the  types  would  soon 
be  worn  out,  and  more  wanted  ;  that  S.  Keimer  and  D.  Harry  had 
failed  one  after  the  other,  and  I  should  probably  soon  follow  them ; 
and,  therefore,  I  was  forbidden  the  house  and  the  daughter  shut  up. ' ' 

This  the  young  printer  thought  was  a  mere  arti 
fice,  the  parents  thinking  that  the  pair  were  too  fond 
of  each  other  to  separate,  and  that  they  would  steal 
a  marriage,  in  which  event  the  parents  could  give  or 
withhold  what  they  pleased.  He  resented  this  at 
tempt  to  force  his  hand,  dropped  the  whole  matter, 
and  as  a  consequence  quarrelled  with  Mrs.  Godfrey, 
who  with  her  husband  and  children  left  his  house. 

The  passage  which  follows  in  Franklin's  Auto 
biography  implies  that  his  utter  inability  at  this 
period  to  restrain  his  passions  directed  his  thoughts 
more  seriously  than  ever  to  marriage,  and  he  was 
determined  to  have  a  wife.  It  may  be  well  here  to 
comment  again  on  his  remarkable  frankness.  There 
have  been  distinguished  men,  like  Rousseau,  who 
were  at  times  morbidly  frank.  Their  frankness, 
however,  usually  took  the  form  of  a  confession 
which  did  not  add  to  their  dignity.  But  Franklin 
never  confessed  anything ;  he  told  it.  His  dig- 

IIO 


RELIGION   AND   MORALS 

nity  was  as  natural  and  as  instinctive  as  Washing 
ton's,  though  of  a  different  kind.  His  supreme 
intellect  easily  avoided  all  positions  in  which  he 
would  have  to  confess  or  make  admissions ;  and,  as 
there  was  nothing  morbid  in  his  character,  so  there 
was  nothing  morbid  in  his  frankness. 

The  frankness  seems  to  have  been  closely  con 
nected  with  his  serenity  and  courage.  There  never 
was  a  man  so  little  disturbed  by  consequences  or 
possibilities.  He  was  quick  to  take  advantage  of 
popular  whims,  and  he  would  not  expose  himself 
unnecessarily  to  public  censure.  His  letter  to  Presi 
dent  Stiles,  of  Yale,  is  an  example.  Being  asked 
for  his  religious  opinion,  he  states  it  fully  and  with 
out  reserve,  although  knowing  that  it  would  be  ex 
tremely  distasteful  to  the  man  to  whom  it  was  ad 
dressed,  and,  if  made  public,  would  bring  upon  him 
the  enmity  of  the  most  respectable  people  in  the 
country,  whose  good  opinion  every  one  wishes  to 
secure.  The  only  precaution  he  takes  is  to  ask  the 
president  not  to  publish  what  he  says,  and  he  gives 
his  reasons  as  frankly  as  he  gives  the  religious  opin 
ion.  But  if  the  letter  had  been  published  before  his 
death,  he  would  have  lost  neither  sleep  nor  appetite, 
and  doubtless,  by  some  jest  or  appeal  to  human 
sympathy,  would  have  turned  it  to  good  account. 

Since  his  time  there  have  been  self-made  men  in 
this  country  who  have  advanced  themselves  by  pro 
fessing  fulsome  devotion  to  the  most  popular  forms 
of  religion,  and  they  have  found  this  method  very 
useful  in  their  designs  on  financial  institutions  or 
public  office.  We  would  prefer  them  to  take  Frank- 

iii 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

lin  for  their  model ;  and  they  may  have  all  his  fail 
ings  if  they  will  only  be  half  as  honest. 

But  to  return  to  his  designs  for  a  wife,  which  were 
by  no  means  romantic.  Miss  Read,  for  whom  he 
had  a  partiality,  had  married  one  Rogers  during 
Franklin's  absence  in  London.  Rogers  ill  treated 
and  deserted  her,  and,  dejected  and  melancholy, 
she  was  now  living  at  home  with  her  mother.  She 
and  Franklin  had  been  inclined  to  marry  before  he 
went  to  London,  but  her  mother  prevented  it.  Ac 
cording  to  his  account,  she  had  been  in  love  with 
him  ;  but,  although  he  liked  her,  we  do  not  under 
stand  that  he  was  in  love.  He  never  seems  to  have 
been  in  love  with  any  woman  in  the  sense  of  a  ro 
mantic  or  exalted  affection,  although  he  flirted  with 
many,  both  young  and  old,  almost  to  the  close  of 
his  life. 

But  now,  on  renewing  his  attentions,  he  found 
that  her  mother  had  no  objections.  There  was, 
however,  one  serious  difficulty,  for  Mr.  Rogers,  al 
though  he  had  deserted  her,  was  not  known  to  be 
dead,  and  divorces  were  but  little  thought  of  at 
that  time.  Franklin  naturally  did  not  want  to  add 
bigamy  to  his  other  youthful  offences,  and  it  would 
also  have  required  a  revision  of  his  liturgy  and  code. 
Rogers  had,  moreover,  left  debts  which  Franklin 
feared  he  might  be  expected  to  pay,  and  he  had  had 
enough  of  that  sort  of  thing.  "  We  ventured,  how 
ever,"  he  says,  "  over  all  these  difficulties,  and  I 
took  her  to  wife  September  I,  1730."  None  of 
the  inconveniences  happened,  for  neither  Rogers  nor 
his  debts  ever  turned  up. 

112 


..    . 


' 


WILLIAM    TEMPLE    FRANKLIN 


**& 

UNIVJ 
Of.  ,, 


RELIGION  AND   MORALS 

Franklin's  detractors  have  always  insisted  that  no 
marriage  ceremony  was  performed  and  that  he  was 
never  legally  married.  There  is  no  record  of  such  a 
marriage  in  Christ  Church,  of  which  Mrs.  Rogers 
was  a  member,  and  the  phrase  used,  "took  her  to 
wife,"  is  supposed  to  show  that  they  simply  lived 
together,  fearing  a  regular  ceremony,  which,  if  Rogers 
was  alive,  would  convict  them  of  bigamy.  The  ab 
sence  of  any  record  of  a  ceremony  is,  however,  not 
necessarily  conclusive  that  there  was  no  ceremony  of 
any  kind  ;  and  the  question  is  not  now  of  serious 
importance,  for  they  intended  marriage,  always  re 
garded  themselves  as  man  and  wife,  and,  in  any 
event,  it  was  a  common-law  marriage.  Their  chil 
dren  were  baptized  in  Christ  Church  as  legitimate- 
children,  and  in  a  deed  executed  three  or  four  years 
after  1730  they  are  spoken  of  as  husband  and  wife. 

A  few  months  after  the  marriage  his  illegitimate 
son  William  was  born,  and  Mr.  Bigelow  has  made 
the  extraordinary  statement,  "  William  may  therefore 
be  said  to  have  been  born  in  wedlock,  though  he  was 
not  reputed  to  be  the  son  of  Mrs.  Franklin."  *  This 
is  certainly  an  enlarged  idea  of  the  possibilities  of 
wedlock,  and  on  such  a  principle  marriage  to  one 
woman  would  legitimatize  the  man's  illegitimate  off 
spring  by  all  others.  It  is  difficult  to  understand 
the  meaning  of  such  a  statement,  unless  it  is  an  in 
direct  way  of  suggesting  that  William  was  the  son  of 
Mrs.  Franklin  ;  but  of  this  there  is  no  evidence. 

Franklin   always   considered   his  neglect  of  Miss 


*  Bigelow's  Works  of  Franklin,  vol.  iii.  p.  216,  note. 
"3 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

Read  after  he  had  observed  her  affection  for  him 
one  of  the  errors  of  his  life.  He  had  almost  for 
gotten  her  while  in  London,  and  after  he  returned 
appears  to  have  shown  her  no  attention,  until,  by 
the  failure  of  the  match  Mrs.  Godfrey  had  arranged 
for  him,  he  was  driven  to  the  determination  to  marry 
some  one.  He  believed  that  he  had  largely  cor 
rected  this  error  by  marrying  her.  "  She  proved  a 
good  and  faithful  helpmate,"  he  says  ;  "assisted  me 
much  by  attending  the  shop  ;  we  throve  together, 
and  have  ever  mutually  endeavored  to  make  each 
other  happy."  She  died  in  1774,  while  Franklin 
was  in  England. 

There  is  nothing  in  anything  he  ever  said  to 
show  that  they  did  not  get  on  well  together.  On 
the  contrary,  their  letters  seem  to  show  a  most 
friendly  companionship.  He  addressed  her  in  his 
letters  as  "  my  dear  child,"  and  sometimes  closed  by 
calling  her  "dear  Debby,"  and  she  also  addressed 
him  as  "dear  child."  During  his  absence  in  Eng 
land  they  corresponded  a  great  deal.  Her  letters  to 
him  were  so  frequent  that  he  complained  that  he 
could  not  keep  up  with  them  ;  and  his  letters  to  her 
were  written  in  his  best  vein,  beautiful  specimens  of 
his  delicate  mastery  of  language,  as  the  large  collec 
tion  of  them  in  the  possession  of  the  American 
Philosophical  Society  abundantly  shows. 

In  writing  to  Miss  Catharine  Ray,  afterwards  the 
wife  of  Governor  Greene,  of  Rhode  Island,  who  had 
sent  him  a  cheese,  he  said, — 

"  Mrs.  Franklin  was  very  proud  that  a  young  lady  should  have  so 
much  regard  for  her  old  husband  as  to  send  him  such  a  present. 

114 


RELIGION  AND   MORALS 

We  talk  of  you  every  time  it  comes  to  the  table.  She  is  sure  you 
are  a  sensible  girl,  and  a  notable  housewife,  and  talks  of  bequeath 
ing  me  to  you  as  a  legacy ;  but  I  ought  to  wish  you  a  better,  and  I 
hope  she  will  live  these  hundred  years ;  for  we  are  grown  old 
together,  and  if  she  has  any  faults,  I  am  so  used  to  them  that  I 
don't  perceive  them.  As  the  song  says, — 

"  '  Some  faults  we  have  all,  &  so  has  my  Joan, 

But  then  they're  exceedingly  small ; 
And,  now  I'm  grown  used  to  them,  so  like  my  own, 
I  scarcely  can  see  them  at  all, 

My  dear  friends, 
I  scarcely  can  see  them  at  all. ' 

"  Indeed  I  begin  to  think  she  has  none,  as  I  think  of  you.  And 
since  she  is  willing  I  should  love  you  as  much  as  you  are  willing  to 
be  loved  by  me,  let  us  join  in  wishing  the  old  lady  a  long  life  and  a 
happy  one. ' ' 

While  absent  at  an  Indian  conference  on  the 
frontier,  he  wrote  reprovingly  to  his  wife  for  not 
sending  him  a  letter  : 

' '  I  had  a  good  mind  not  to  write  to  you  by  this  opportunity  ;  but 
I  never  can  be  ill  natured  enough  even  when  there  is  the  most  occa 
sion.  I  think  I  won't  tell  you  that  we  are  well,  nor  that  we  expect 
to  return  about  the  middle  of  the  week,  nor  will  I  send  you  a  word 
of  news  ;  that's  poz.  My  duty  to  mother,  love  to  the  children,  and 
to  Miss  Betsey  and  Gracy.  I  am  your  loving  husband. 

"  P.  S.  I  have  scratched  out  the  loving  words,  being  writ  in  haste 
by  mistake  when  I  forgot  I  was  angry." 

Mrs.  Franklin  was  a  stout,  handsome  woman. 
We  have  a  description  of  her  by  her  husband  in 
a  letter  he  wrote  from  London  telling  her  of  the 
various  presents  and  supplies  he  had  sent  home  : 

"  I  also  forgot,  among  the  china,  to  mention  a  large  fine  jug  for 
beer,  to  stand  in  the  cooler.  I  fell  in  love  with  it  at  first  sight ;  for 
I  thought  it  looked  like  a  fat  jolly  dame,  clean  and  tidy,  with  a  neat 
blue  and  white  calico  gown  on,  good  natured  and  lovely,  and  put 
me  in  mind  of  somebody." 

"5 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

This  letter  is  full  of  interesting  details.  He  tells 
her  of  the  regard  and  friendship  he  meets  with  from 
persons  of  worth,  and  of  his  longing  desire  to  be 
home  again.  A  full  description  of  the  articles  sent 
would  be  too  long  to  quote  entire,  but  some  of  it 
may  be  given  as  a  glimpse  of  their  domestic  life  : 

"  I  send  you  some  English  china ;  viz,  melons  and  hams  for  a 
dessert  of  fruit  or  the  like ;  a  bowl  remarkable  for  the  neatness  of 
the  figures,  made  at  Bow,  near  this  city ;  some  coffee  cups  of  the 
same  ;  a  Worcester  bowl,  ordinary.  To  show  the  difference  of 
workmanship,  there  is  something  from  all  the  china  works  in  Eng 
land  ;  and  one  old  true  china  bason  mended,  of  an  odd  color.  The 
same  box  contains  four  silver  salt  ladles,  newest  but  ugliest  fashion  ; 
a  little  instrument  to  core  apples ;  another  to  make  little  turnips  out 
of  great  ones  ;  six  coarse  diaper  breakfast  cloths  ;  they  are  to  spread 
on  the  tea  table,  for  nobody  breakfasts  here  on  the  naked  table,  but 
on  the  cloth  they  set  a  large  tea  board  with  the  cups.  There  is  also 
a  little  basket,  a  present  from  Mrs.  Stevenson  to  Sally,  and  a  pair  of 
garters  for  you,  which  were  knit  by  the  young  lady,  her  daughter, 
who  favored  me  with  a  pair  of  the  same  kind ;  the  only  ones  I  have 
been  able  to  wear,  as  they  need  not  be  bound  tight,  the  ridges  in 
them  preventing  their  slipping.  We  send  them  therefore  as  a  curi 
osity  for  the  form,  more  than  for  the  value.  Goody  Smith  may,  if  she 
pleases,  make  such  for  me  hereafter.  My  love  to  her." 

At  the  time  of  the  Stamp  Act,  in  1765,  when  the 
Philadelphians  were  much  incensed  against  Franklin 
for  not  having,  as  they  thought,  sufficiently  resisted, 
as  their  agent  in  England,  the  passage  of  the  act, 
the  mob  threatened  Mrs.  Franklin's  house,  and  she 
wrote  to  her  husband  : 

"  I  was  for  nine  days  kept  in  a  continual  hurry  by  people  to  re 
move,  and  Sally  was  persuaded  to  go  to  Burlington  for  safety. 
Cousin  Davenport  came  and  told  me  that  more  than  twenty  people 
had  told  him  it  was  his  duty  to  be  with  me.  I  said  I  was  pleased  to 
receive  civility  from  anybody,  so  he  staid  with  me  some  time  ; 

116 


MRS.    FRANKLIN 


RELIGION  AND   MORALS 

towards  night  I  said  he  should  fetch  a  gun  or  two,  as  we  had  none. 
I  sent  to  ask  my  brother  to  come  and  bring  his  gun  also,  so  we 
turned  one  room  into  a  magazine  ;  I  ordered  some  sort  of  defense 
up  stairs  such  as  I  could  manage  myself.  I  said  when  I  was  ad 
vised  to  remove,  that  I  was  very  sure  you  had  done  nothing  to  hurt 
anybody,  nor  had  I  given  any  offense  to  any  person  at  all,  nor 
would  I  be  made  uneasy  by  anybody,  nor  would  I  stir  or  show  the 
least  uneasiness,  but  if  any  one  came  to  disturb  me  I  would  show  a 
proper  resentment.  I  was  told  that  there  were  eight  hundred  men 
ready  to  assist  anyone  that  should  be  molested." 

This  letter  is  certainly  written  in  a  homely  and 
pleasant  way,  not  unlike  the  style  of  her  husband, 
and  other  letters  of  hers  have  been  published  at  dif 
ferent  times  possessing  the  same  merit ;  but  they  have 
all  been  more  or  less  corrected,  and  in  some  in 
stances  rewritten,  before  they  appeared  in  print,  for 
she  was  a  very  illiterate  woman.  I  have  not  access 
to  the  original  manuscript  of  the  letter  I  have  quoted, 
but  I  will  give  another,  which  is  to  be  found  in  the 
collection  of  the  American  Philosophical  Society, 
exactly  as  she  wrote  it : 

October  ye  29.  1773. 
"  MY  DEAR  CHILD 

"  I  have  bin  very  much  distrest  a  boute  as  I  did  not  oney  letter 
nor  one  word  from  you  nor  did  I  hear  one  word  from  oney  bodey 
that  you  wrote  to  So  I  must  submit  and  indever  to  submit  to  what 
I  ame  to  bair  I  did  write  by  Capt  Folkner  to  you  but  he  is  gone 
doun  and  when  I  read  it  over  I  did  not  like  it  and  so  if  this  dont 
send  it  I  shante  like  it  as  I  donte  send  you  oney  news  nor  I  donte  go 
abrode. 

"  I  shall  tell  you  what  consernes  myself  our  yonegest  Grandson  is 
the  finest  child  as  alive  he  has  had  the  small  Pox  and  had  it  very  fine 
and  got  abrod  agen  Capt  All  will  tell  you  a  boute  him  Benj  Franklin 
Beache  but  as  it  is  so  deficall  to  writ  I  have  desered  him  to  tell  you 
I  have  sente  a  squerel  for  your  friend  and  wish  her  better  luck  it  is 
a  very  fine  one  I  have  had  very  bad  luck  with  two  they  one  killed 
and  another  run  a  way  allthou  they  was  bred  up  tame  I  have  not  a 
caige  as  I  donte  know  where  the  man  lives  that  makes  them  my  love 

117 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

to  Sally  Franklin — my  love  to  all  our  cousins  as  thou  menthond 
remember  me  to  Mr  and  Mrs  Weste  due  you  ever  hear  aney  thing 
of  Ninely  Evers  as  was. 

"  I  cante  write  any  mor  I  am  your  afeckthone  wife 

"D.  FRANKLIN" 


She  was  not  a  congenial  companion  for  Franklin 
in  most  of  his  tastes  and  pursuits,  in  his  studies  in 
science  and  history,  or  in  his  political  and  diplomatic 
career.  He  never  appears  to  have  written  to  her  on 
any  of  these  subjects.  But  she  helped  him,  as  he  has 
himself  said,  in  the  early  days  in  the  printing-office, 
buying  rags  for  the  paper  and  stitching  pamphlets. 
It  was  her  homely,  housewifely  virtues,  handsome 
figure,  good  health,  and  wholesome  common  sense 
which  appealed  to  him ;  and  it  was  a  strong  appeal, 
for  he  enjoyed  these  earthly  comforts  fully  as  much 
as  he  did  the  high  walks  of  learning  in  which  his 
fame  was  won.  He  once  wrote  to  her,  "  it  was  a 
comfort  to  me  to  recollect  that  I  had  once  been 
clothed  from  head  to  foot  in  woolen  and  linen  of  my 
wife's  manufacture,  and  that  I  never  was  prouder  of 
any  dress  in  my  life." 

She  bore  him  two  children.  The  first  was  a  son, 
Francis  Folger  Franklin,  an  unusually  bright,  hand 
some  boy,  the  delight  of  all  that  knew  him.  Frank 
lin  had  many  friends,  and  seems  to  have  been  very 
much  attached  to  his  wife,  but  this  child  was  the  one 
human  being  whom  he  loved  with  extravagance  and 
devotion.  Although  believing  in  inoculation  as  a 
remedy  for  the  small-pox,  he  seems  to  have  been 
unable  to  bear  the  thought  of  protecting  in  this  way 

118 


MRS.    SARAH    BACHE 


RELIGION  AND   MORALS 

his  favorite  son  ;  at  any  rate,  he  neglected  to  take 
the  precaution,  and  the  boy  died  of  the  disease 
when  only  four  years  old.  The  father  mourned  for 
him  long  and  bitterly,  and  nearly  forty  years  after 
wards,  when  an  old  man,  could  not  think  of  him 
without  a  sigh. 

The  other  child  was  a  daughter,  Sarah,  also  very 
handsome,  who  married  Richard  Bache  and  has  left 
numerous  descendants.  His  illegitimate  son,  Wil 
liam,  was  brought  home  when  he  was  a  year  old  and 
cared  for  along  with  his  other  children ;  and  Wil 
liam's  illegitimate  son,  Temple  Franklin,  was  the 
companion  and  secretary  of  his  grandfather  in  Eng 
land  and  France.  The  illegitimate  daughter  was 
apparently  never  brought  home,  and  is  not  referred 
to  in  his  writings,  except  in  those  occasional  let 
ters  in  which  he  sends  her  his  love.  According  to 
the  letter  already  mentioned  as  in  the  collection  of 
the  Pennsylvania  Historical  Society,  she  was  married 
to  John  Foxcroft,  who  was  deputy  colonial  post 
master  in  Philadelphia.  It  was  well  that  she  was 
kept  away  from  Franklin's  house,  for  the  presence 
of  William  appears  to  have  given  trouble  enough. 
A  household  composed  of  legitimate  and  illegitimate 
children  is  apt  to  be  inharmonious  at  times,  espe 
cially  when  the  mother  of  the  legitimate  children  is 
the  mistress  of  the  house. 

Franklin's  biographies  tell  us  that  Mrs.  Franklin 
tenderly  nurtured  William.  This  may  be  true,  and, 
judging  from  expressions  in  her  printed  letters,  she 
seems  to  have  been  friendly  enough  with  him.  But 
from  other  sources  we  find  that  as  William  grew  up 

119 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

she  learned  to  hate  him,  and  this,  with  some  other 
secrets  of  the  Franklin  household,  has  been  described 
in  the  diary  of  Daniel  Fisher : 

"  As  I  was  coming  down  from  my  chamber  this  afternoon  a  gen 
tlewoman  was  sitting  on  one  of  the  lowest  stairs  which  were  but 
narrow,  and  there  not  being  room  enough  to  pass,  she  rose  up  & 
threw  herself  upon  the  floor  and  sat  there.  Mr.  Soumien  &  his  Wife 
greatly  entreated  her  to  arise  and  take  a  chair,  but  in  vain,  she  would 
keep  her  seat,  and  kept  it,  I  think,  the  longer  for  their  entreaty. 
This  gentlewoman,  whom  though  I  had  seen  before  I  did  not  know, 
appeared  to  be  Mrs.  Franklin.  She  assumed  the  airs  of  extraor 
dinary  freedom  and  great  Humility,  Lamented  heavily  the  misfor 
tunes  of  those  who  are  unhappily  infected  with  a  too  tender  or 
benevolent  disposition,  said  she  believed  all  the  world  claimed  a 
privilege  of  troubling  her  Pappy  (so  she  usually  calls  Mr.  Franklin) 
with  their  calamities  and  distresses,  giving  us  a  general  history  of 
many  such  wretches  and  their  impertinent  applications  to  him." 
(Pennsylvania  Magazine  of  History,  vol.  xvii.  p.  271.) 

In  the  pamphlet  called  "What  is  Sauce  for  a 
Goose  is  also  Sauce  for  a  Gander,"  already  alluded 
to,  Franklin  is  spoken  of  as  "Pappy"  in  a  way 
which  seems  to  show  that  the  Philadelphians  knew 
his  wife's  nickname  for  him  and  were  fond  of  using 
it  to  ridicule  him. 

Afterwards,  Daniel  Fisher  lived  in  Franklin's 
house  as  his  clerk,  and  thus  obtained  a  still  more 
intimate  knowledge  of  his  domestic  affairs. 

' '  Mr.  Soumien  had  often  informed  me  of  great  uneasiness  and 
dissatisfaction  in  Mr.  Franklin's  family  in  a  manner  no  way  pleasing 
to  me,  and  which  in  truth  I  was  unwilling  to  credit,  but  as  Mrs. 
Franklin  and  I  of  late  began  to  be  Friendly  and  sociable  I  dis 
cerned  too  great  grounds  for  Mr.  Soumien's  Reflections,  arising 
solely  from  the  turbulence  and  jealousy  and  pride  of  her  disposition. 
She  suspecting  Mr.  Franklin  for  having  too  great  an  esteem  for 
his  son  in  prejudice  of  herself  and  daughter,  a  young  woman  of 
about  12  or  13  years  of  age,  for  whom  it  was  visible  Mr.  Franklin 
had  no  less  esteem  than  for  his  son  young  Mr.  Franklin.  I  have 

120 


RELIGION  AND   MORALS 

often  seen  him  pass  to  and  from  his  father's  apartment  upon  Busi 
ness  (for  he  does  not  eat,  drink,  or  sleep  in  the  House)  without  the 
least  compliment  between  Mrs.  Franklin  and  him  or  any  sort  of 
notice  taken  of  each  other,  till  one  Day  as  I  was  sitting  with  her  in 
the  passage  when  the  young  Gentleman  came  by  she  exclaimed  to 
me  (he  not  hearing)  : — 

"  '  Mr.  Fisher  there  goes  the  greatest  Villain  upon  Earth.' 
"This  greatly  confounded  &  perplexed  me,  but  did  not  hinder 
her  from  pursuing  her  Invectives  in  the  foulest  terms  I  ever  heard 
from  a  Gentlewoman."     (Pennsylvania  Magazine  of  History,  vol. 
xvii.  p.  276.) 

Fisher's  descriptions  confirm  the  gossip  which  has 
descended  by  tradition  in  many  Philadelphia  fami 
lies.  He  found  Mrs.  Franklin  to  be  a  woman  of 
such  ''turbulent  temper"  that  this  and  other  un 
pleasant  circumstances  forced  him  to  leave.  Possi 
bly  these  were  some  of  the  faults  which  her  husband 
speaks  of  as  so  exceedingly  small  and  so  like  his  own 
that  he  scarcely  could  see  them  at  all.  The  presence 
of  her  husband's  illegitimate  son  must  have  been 
very  trying,  and  goes  a  long  way  to  excuse  her. 

All  that  Franklin  has  written  about  himself  is  so 
full  of  a  serene  philosophic  spirit,  and  his  biogra 
phers  have  echoed  it  so  faithfully,  that,  in  spite  of 
his  frankness,  things  are  made  to  appear  a  little 
easier  than  they  really  were.  His  life  was  full  of 
contests,  but  they  have  not  all  been  noted,  and  the 
sharpness  of  many  of  them  has  been  worn  off  by 
time.  In  Philadelphia,  where  he  was  engaged  in 
the  most  bitter  partisan  struggles,  where  the  details 
of  his  life  were  fully  known, — his  humble  origin, 
his  slow  rise,  his  indelicate  jokes,  and  his  illegitimate 
children, — there  were  not  a  few  people  who  cher 
ished  a  most  relentless  antipathy  towards  him  which 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

neither  his  philanthropy  nor  his  philosophic  and 
scientific  mind  could  soften.  This  bitter  feeling 
against  the  "old  rogue,"  as  they  called  him,  still 
survives  among  some  of  the  descendants  of  the 
people  of  his  time,  and  fifty  or  sixty  years  ago  there 
were  virtuous  old  ladies  living  in  Philadelphia  who 
would  flame  into  indignation  at  the  mention  of  his 
name. 

Chief-Justice  Allen,  who  was  his  contemporary 
and  opponent  in  politics,  described  him  as  a  man 
of  "wicked  heart/'  and  declared  that  he  had  often 
been  a  witness  of  his  "envenomed  malice."  In  H. 
W.  Smith's  "Life  of  Rev.  William  Smith"  a  great 
deal  of  this  abuse  can  be  found.  Provost  Smith 
and  Franklin  quarrelled  over  the  management  of 
the  College  of  Philadelphia,  and  on  a  benevolent 
pamphlet  by  the  provost  Franklin  wrote  a  verse 
from  the  poet  Whitehead  :  * 

"  Full  many  a  peevish,  envious,  slanderous  elf 
Is  in  his  works,  Benevolence  itself 
For  all  mankind,  unknown  his  bosom  heaves, 
He  only  injures  those  with  whom  he  lives. 
Read  then  the  man.     Does  truth  his  actions  guide  ? 
Exempt  from  petulance,  exempt  from  pride  ? 
To  social  duties  does  his  heart  attend — 
As  son,  as  father,  husband,  brother,  friend? 
Do  those  who  know  him  love  him  ?     If  they  do 
You  have  my  permission — you  may  love  him  too." 

(Smith's  Life  of  Rev.  William  Smith,  vol.  i.  p.  341.) 

Provost  Smith's  biographer  resents  this  attack 
by  giving  contemporary  opinions  of  Franklin  ;  and 


*  This  verse  Franklin  also  quotes  against  Smith  in  a  letter  to  Miss 
Stevenson.     (Bigelow's  Works  of  Franklin,  vol.  iii.  p.  235.) 

122 


RELIGION  AND   MORALS 

a  paragraph  omitted  in  the  regular  edition  (page 
347  of  volume  i.),  but  printed  on  an  extra  leaf  and 
circulated  among  the  author's  friends,  may  be  quoted 
as  an  example.  It  was,  however,  not  original  with 
Smith's  biographer,  but  was  copied  with  a  few 
changes  from  Cobbett's  attack  on  Franklin  : 

"Dr.  Benjamin  Franklin  has  told  the  world  in  poetry  what,  in 
his  judgment,  my  ancestor  was.  His  venerable  shade  will  excuse 
me,  if  I  tell  in  prose  what,  in  the  judgment  of  men  who  lived  near 
a  century  ago,  Dr.  Smith  was  not :  He  was  no  almanack  maker, 
nor  quack,  nor  chimney-doctor,  nor  soap  boiler,  nor  printer's  devil, 
neither  was  he  a  deist ;  and  all  his  children  were  born  in  wedlock. 
He  bequeathed  no  old  and  irrecoverable  debts  to  a  hospital.  He 
never  cheated  the  poor  during  his  life  nor  mocked  them  in  his  death. 
If  his  descendants  cannot  point  to  his  statue  over  a  library,  they  have 
not  the  mortification  of  hearing  him  daily  accused  of  having  been  a 
fornicator,  a  hypocrite,  and  an  infidel." 

Some  of  the  charges  in  this  venomous  statement 
are  in  a  sense  true,  but  are  exaggerated  by  the 
manner  in  which  they  are  presented,  an  art  in  which 
Cobbett  excelled.  I  have  in  the  preceding  chap 
ters  given  sufficient  details  to  throw  light  on  many 
of  them.  Franklin  was  an  almanac-maker,  a  chim 
ney-doctor,  and  a  soap-boiler,  but  in  none  of  these  is 
there  anything  to  his  discredit  As  to  his  irrecovera 
ble  debts,  it  is  true  that  he  left  them  to  the  Pennsyl 
vania  Hospital,  saying  in  his  will  that,  as  the  persons 
who  owed  them  were  unwilling  to  pay  them  to  him, 
they  might  be  willing  to  pay  them  to  the  hospital 
as  charity.  They  were  a  source  of  great  annoy 
ance  to  the  managers,  and  were  finally  returned  to 
his  executors.  The  statement  that  he  cheated  the 
poor  during  his  life  and  mocked  them  in  his  death 

123 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

is  entirely  unjustified.  He  was  often  generous  with 
his  money  to  people  in  misfortune,  and  several  such 
instances  can  be  found  in  his  letters.  It  is  also 
going  too  far  to  say  that  he  was  a  quack  and  a 
hypocrite. 

While  in  England  he  associated  on  the  most  in 
timate  terms  with  eminent  literary  and  scientific  men. 
Distinguished  travellers  from  the  Continent  called  on 
him  to  pay  their  respects.  He  stayed  at  noblemen's 
country-seats  and  with  the  Bishop  of  St.  Asaph. 
He  corresponded  with  all  these  people  in  the  most 
friendly  and  easy  manner ;  they  were  delighted  with 
his  conversation  and  could  never  see  enough  of  him. 
In  France  everybody  worshipped  him,  and  the  court 
circles  received  him  with  enthusiasm.  But  in  Phila 
delphia  the  colonial  aristocracy  were  not  on  friendly 
terms  with  him.  He  had,  of  course,  numerous 
friends,  including  some  members  of  aristocratic  fami 
lies  ;  but  we  find  few,  if  any,  evidences  of  that  close 
intimacy  and  affection  which  he  enjoyed  among  the 
best  people  of  Europe. 

This  hostility  was  not  altogether  due  to  his  humble 
origin  or  to  the  little  printing-office  and  stationery 
store  where  he  sold  goose-feathers  as  well  as  writing 
material  and  bought  old  rags.  These  disadvantages 
would  not  have  been  sufficient,  for  his  accomplish 
ments  and  wit  raised  him  far  above  his  early  sur 
roundings,  and  the  colonial  society  of  Philadelphia 
was  not  illiberal  in  such  matters.  The  principal 
cause  of  the  hostility  towards  him  was  his  violent 
opposition  to  the  proprietary  party,  to  which  most  of 
the  upper  classes  belonged,  and,  having  this  ground 

124 


RELIGION  AND   MORALS 

of  dislike,  it  was  easy  for  them  to  strengthen  and  ex 
cuse  it  by  the  gossip  about  his  illegitimate  son  and 
the  son's  mother  kept  as  a  servant  in  his  house. 
They  ridiculed  the  small  economies  he  practised, 
and  branded  his  religious  and  moral  theorizing  as 
hypocrisy. 

He  was  very  fond  of  broad  jokes,  which  have 
always  been  tolerated  in  America  under  certain 
circumstances ;  but  the  man  who  writes  them, 
especially  if  he  also  writes  and  talks  a  great  deal 
about  religion  and  undertakes  to  improve  prayer- 
books,  gives  a  handle  to  his  enemies  and  an  oppor 
tunity  for  unfavorable  comment  The  Portfolio,  a 
Philadelphia  journal,  of  May  23,  1801,  representing 
more  particularly  the  upper  classes  of  the  city,  prints 
one  of  his  broad  letters,  and  takes  the  opportunity 
to  assail  him  for  "  hypocrisy,  hackneyed  deism, 
muck- worn  economy,"  and  other  characteristics  of 
what  it  considers  humbug  and  deceit  It  has  been 
suggested  that  far  back  in  the  past  one  of  Franklin's 
ancestors  might  have  been  French,  for  his  name  in 
the  form  Franquelin  was  at  one  time  not  uncommon 
in  France.  This  might  account  for  his  easy  bright 
ness  and  vivacity,  and  also,  it  may  be  added,  for 
such  letters  as  he  sometimes  wrote  : 

"To  Mr.  JAMES  READ 

"  Saturday  morning  Aug  17  '45. 
"DEAR  J. 

"  I  have  been  reading  your  letter  over  again,  and  since  you  de 
sire  an  answer  I  sit  me  down  to  write  you  ;  yet  as  I  write  in  the 
market,  will  I  believe  be  but  a  short  one,  tho'  I  may  be  long  about 
it.  I  approve  of  your  method  of  writing  one's  mind  when  one  is  too 
warm  to  speak  it  with  temper  :  but  being  myself  quite  cool  in  this 
affair  I  might  as  well  speak  as  write,  if  I  had  opportunity.  Your  copy 

125 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

of  Kempis  must  be  a  corrupt  one  if  it  has  that  passage  as  you  quote 
it,  in  omnibus  requiem  quaesivi,  sed  non  invent,  nisi  in  angulo  cum 
libello.  The  good  father  understood  pleasure  (requiem]  better,  and 
wrote  in  angulo  cum puella.  Correct  it  thus  without  hesitation." 

(Portfolio,  vol.  i.  p.  165.) 

The  letter  continues  the  jest  in  a  way  that  I  do 
not  care  to  quote  ;  but  the  last  half  of  it  is  full  of 
sage  and  saintly  advice.  It  is  perhaps  the  only  letter 
which  gives  at  the  same  time  both  sides  of  Franklin's 
character.  But  Sparks  and  Bigelow  in  their  edi 
tions  of  his  works  give  the  last  half  only,  with  no  in 
dication  that  the  first  half  has  been  omitted. 

In  the  same  year  that  he  wrote  this  letter  he  also 
wrote  his  letter  of  advice  to  a  young  man  on  the 
choice  of  a  mistress,  a  copy  of  which  is  now  in  the 
State  Department  at  Washington,  while  numerous 
copies  taken  from  it  have  been  circulated  secretly  all 
over  the  country.  This  year  (1745)  seems  to  have 
been  his  reckless  period,  for  it  was  about  that  time 
that  he  published  "  Polly  Baker's  Speech,"  which 
will  be  given  in  another  chapter.  In  the  State  De 
partment  at  Washington  is  also  preserved  his  letter 
on  Perfumes  to  the  Royal  Academy  of  Brussels,  which 
cannot  be  published  under  the  rules  of  modern  taste, 
and,  in  fact,  Franklin  himself  speaks  of  it  as  having 
"too  much  grossierete"  to  be  borne  by  polite  readers.* 
I  shall,  however,  give  as  much  of  the  letter  on  the 
choice  of  a  mistress  as  is  proper  to  publish. 

"June  asth,  1745. 

"Mv  DEAR  FRIEND: 

* '  I  know  of  no  medicine  fit  to  diminish  the  violent  natural  in 
clinations  you  mention,  and  if  I  did,  I  think  I  should  not  communi- 


*  Bigelow's  Works  of  Franklin,  vol.  vii.  p.  374. 
126 


RELIGION  AND   MORALS 

cate  it  to  you.  Marriage  is  the  proper  remedy.  It  is  the  most 
natural  state  of  man,  and,  therefore,  the  state  in  which  you  are  most 
likely  to  find  solid  happiness.  Your  reasons  against  entering  it  at 
present  appear  to  me  not  well  founded.  The  circumstantial  advan 
tages  you  have  in  view  of  postponing  it  are  not  only  uncertain,  but 
they  are  small  in  comparison  with  that  of  the  thing  itself.  /' 

"It  is  the  man  and  woman  united  that  make  the  complete  human 
being.  Separate  she  wants  his  force  of  body  and  strength  of  rea 
son.  He  her  softness,  sensibility,  and  acute  discernment.  Together 
they  are  more  likely  to  succeed  in  the  world.  A  single  man  has  not 
nearly  the  value  he  would  have  in  a  state  of  union.  He  is  an  in 
complete  animal.  He  resembles  the  odd  half  of  a  pair  of  scissors. 
If  you  get  a  prudent,  healthy  wife,  your  industry  in  vour  profession, 
with  her  good  economy  will  be  a  fortune  sufficient. 

"  But  if  you  will  not  take  this  counsel,  and  persist  in  thinking  a 
commerce  with  the  sex  inevitable,  then  I  repeat  my  former  advice, 
that  in  all  your  amours  you  should  prefer  old  women  to  young 
ones.  You  call  this  a  paradox  and  demand  my  reasons.  They  are 
these  : 

"1st.  Because  they  have  more  knowledge  of  the  world,  and  their 
minds  are  better  stored  with  observations  ;  their  conversation  is  more 
improving  and  more  lastingly  agreeable. 

"2d.  Because  when  women  cease  to  be  handsome,  they  study  to 
be  good.  To  maintain  their  influence  over  men,  they  supply  the 
diminution  of  beauty  by  an  augmentation  of  utility.  They  learn  to 
do  a  thousand  services,  small  and  great,  and  are  the  most  tender  and 
useful  of  all  friends  when  you  are  sick.  Thus  they  continue  ami 
able,  and  hence  there  is  scarcely  such  a  thing  to  be  found  as  an  old 
woman  who  is  not  a  good  woman. 

"3d.  Because  there  is  no  hazard  of  children,  which,  irregularly 
produced,  may  be  attended  with  much  inconvenience. 

"4th.  Because,  through  more  experience,  they  are  more  prudent 
and  discreet  in  conducting  an  intrigue  to  prevent  suspicion.  The 
commerce  with  them  is  therefore  safe  with  regard  to  your  reputation 
and  with  regard  to  theirs.  If  the  affair  should  happen  to  be  known, 
considerate  people  might  be  rather  inclined  to  excuse  an  old  woman 
who  would  kindly  take  care  of  a  young  man,  form  his  manners  by 
her  good  counsels,  and  prevent  his  ruining  his  health  and  fortunes 
among  mercenary  prostitutes. 

"5th.  .  .  . 

"6th.  .  .  . 

"  yth.  Because  the  compunction  is  less.  The  having  made  a 
127 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

young  girl  miserable  may  give  you  frequent  bitter  reflections,  none 
of  which  can  attend  the  making  an  old  woman  happy. 
"8th  and  lastly.   .   .   . 

"Thus  much  for  my  paradox,  but  I  still  advise  you  to  marry 
directly,  being  sincerely, 

"  Your  Affectionate  Friend, 

"B.  F." 

Franklin,  however,  was  capable  of  the  most  cour 
teous  gallantry  to  ladies.  In  France  he  delighted 
the  most  distinguished  women  of  the  court  by  his 
compliments  and  witticisms.  When  about  fifty  years 
old  he  wrote  some  letters  to  Miss  Catharine  Ray,  of 
Rhode  Island,  which,  as  coming  from  an  elderly  man 
to  a  bright  young  girl  who  was  friendly  with  him 
and  told  him  her  love-affairs,  are  extremely  interest 
ing.  One  of  them  about  his  wife  we  have  already 
quoted.  In  a  letter  to  him  Miss  Ray  had  asked, 
"How  do  you  do  and  what  are  you  doing?  Does 
everybody  still  love  you,  and  how  do  you  make 
them  do  so?"  After  telling  her  about  his  health,  he 
said, — 

"As  to  the  second  question,  I  must  confess  (but  don't  you  be 
jealous),  that  many  more  people  love  me  now  than  ever  did  before  ; 
for  since  I  saw  you,  I  have  been  able  to  do  some  general  services  to 
the  country  and  to  the  anny,  for  which  both  have  thanked  and  praised 
me,  and  say  they  love  me.  They  say  so,  as  you  used  to  do  ;  and  if 
I  were  to  ask  any  favors  of  them,  they  would,  perhaps,  as  readily 
refuse  me  ;  so  that  I  find  little  real  advantage  in  being  beloved,  but 
it  pleases  my  humor." 

On  another  occasion  he  wrote  to  her, — 

"Persons  subject  to  the  hyp  complain  of  the  northeast  wind  as 
increasing  their  malady.  But  since  you  promised  to  send  me  kisses 
in  that  wind,  and  I  find  you  as  good  as  your  word,  it  is  to  me  the 
gayest  wind  that  blows,  and  gives  me  the  best  spirits.  I  write  this 
during  a  northeast  storm  of  snow,  the  greatest  we  have  had  this 

128 


RELIGION   AND   MORALS 

winter.  Your  favors  come  mixed  with  the  snowy  fleeces,  which  are 
pure  as  your  virgin  innocence,  white  as  your  lovely  bosom,  and — as 
cold.  But  let  it  warm  towards  some  worthy  young  man,  and  may 
Heaven  bless  you  both  with  every  kind  of  happiness." 

He  had  another  young  friend  to  whom  he  wrote 
pretty  letters,  Miss  Mary  Stevenson,  daughter  of 
the  Mrs.  Stevenson  in  whose  house  he  lived  in  Lon 
don  when  on  his  diplomatic  missions  to  England. 
He  encouraged  her  in  scientific  study,  and  some  of 
his  most  famous  explanations  of  the  operations  of 
nature  are  to  be  found  in  letters  written  to  her.  He 
had  hoped  that  she  would  marry  his  son  William, 
but  William's  fancy  strayed  elsewhere. 

"  PORTSMOUTH,  n  August,  1762. 

"  MY  DEAR  POLLY 

"  This  is  the  best  paper  I  can  get  at  this  wretched  inn,  but  it  will 
convey  what  is  intrusted  to  it  as  faithfully  as  the  finest.  It  will  tell 
my  Polly  how  much  her  friend  is  afflicted  that  he  must  perhaps  never 
again  see  one  for  whom  he  has  so  sincere  an  affection,  joined  to  so 
perfect  an  esteem  ;  who  he  once  flattered  himself  might  become  his 
own,  in  the  tender  relation  of  a  child,  but  can  now  entertain  such 
pleasing  hopes  no  more.  Will  it  tell  haw  much  he  is  afflicted  ?  No, 
it  cannot. 

"Adieu,  my  dearest  child.  I  will  call  you  so.  Why  should  I 
not  call  you  so,  since  I  love  you  with  all  the  tenderness  of  a  father  ? 
Adieu.  May  the  God  of  all  goodness  shower  down  his  choicest 
blessings  upon  you,  and  make  you  infinitely  happier  than  that  event 
would  have  made  you.  ..." 

(Bigelow's  Works  of  Franklin,  vol.  iii.  p.  209.) 

This  correspondence  with  Miss  Stevenson  con 
tinued  for  a  great  many  years,  and  there  are  beauti 
ful  letters  to  her  scattered  all  through  his  published 
works.  The  letters  both  to  her  and  to  Miss  Ray  be 
came  more  serious  as  the  two  young  women  grew 
older  and  married.  Miss  Stevenson  sought  his  ad- 
9  "9 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

vice  on  the  question  of  her  marriage,  and  his  reply 
was  as  wise  and  affectionate  as  anything  he  ever 
wrote.  She  married  Dr.  Hewson,  of  London,  and 
they  migrated  to  Philadelphia,  where  she  became  the 
mother  of  a  numerous  family. 

Franklin  had  a  younger  sister,  Jane,  a  pretty  girl, 
afterwards  Mrs.  Mecom,  of  whom  he  was  very  fond, 
and  he  kept  up  a  correspondence  with  her  all  his 
life,  sending  presents  to  her  at  Boston,  helping  her 
son  to  earn  a  livelihood,  and  giving  her  -assistance 
in  her  old  age.  Their  letters  to  each  other  were 
most  homely  and  loving,  and  she  took  the  greatest 
pride  in  his  increasing  fame. 

His  correspondence  with  his  parents  was  also 
pleasant  and  familiar.  In  one  of  his  letters  to  his 
mother  he  amuses  her  by  accounts  of  her  grand 
children,  and  at  the  same  time  pays  a  compliment 
to  his  sister  Jane. 

"As  to  your  grandchildren,  Will  is  now  nineteen  years  of  age,  a 
tall,  proper  youth,  and  much  of  a  beau.  He  acquired  a  habit  of 
idleness  on  the  Expedition,  but  begins  of  late  to  apply  himself  to 
business,  and  I  hope  will  become  an  industrious  man.  He  im 
agined  his  father  had  got  enough  for  him,  but  I  have  assured  him 
that  I  intend  to  spend  what  little  I  have  myself,  if  it  pleases  God 
that  I  live  long  enough  ;  and,  as  he  by  no  means  wants  acuteness, 
he  can  see  by  my  going  on  that  I  mean  to  be  as  good  as  my  word. 

"Sally  grows  a  fine  girl,  and  is  extremely  industrious  with  her 
needle,  and  delights  in  her  work.  She  is  of  a  most  affectionate 
temper,  and  perfectly  dutiful  and  obliging  to  her  parents,  and  to  all. 
Perhaps  I  flatter  myself  too  much,  but  I  have  hopes  that  she  will 
prove  an  ingenious,  sensible,  notable  and  worthy  woman  like  her 
aunt  Jenny."  (Bigelow's  Works  of  Franklin,  vol.  ii.  p.  154.) 

Over  the  grave  of  his  parents  in  the  Granary 
Burial-Ground  in  Boston  he  placed  a  stone,  and  pre- 

130 


RELIGION  AND   MORALS 

pared  for  it  one  of  those  epitaphs  in  which  he  was 
so  skilful  and  which  were  almost  poems  : 

Josiah  Franklin  and  Abiah  his  wife 

lie  here  interred. 

They  lived  together  in  wedlock  fifty-five  years  ; 

and  without  an  estate  or  any  gainful  employment, 

by  constant  labour,  and  honest  industry, 

(with  God's  blessing,) 
maintained  a  large  family  comfortably  ; 
and  brought  up  thirteen  children  and  seven  grand 
children  reputably. 
From  this  instance,  reader, 
be  encouraged  to  diligence  in  thy  calling, 

and  distrust  not  Providence. 

He  was  a  pious  and  prudent  man, 

she  a  discreet  and  virtuous  woman. 

Their  youngest  son, 
in  filial  regard  to  their  memory, 

places  this  stone. 

J.  F.  born  1655 — died  1744, — JE.  89. 
A.  F.  born  1667— died  1752,—^.  85. 


IV 

BUSINESS   AND    LITERATURE 

FRANKLIN'S  ancestors  in  both  America  and  Eng 
land  had  not  been  remarkable  for  their  success  in 
worldly  affairs.  Most  of  them  did  little  more  than 
earn  a  living,  and,  being  of  contented  dispositions, 
had  no  ambition  to  advance  beyond  it.  Some  of 
them  were  entirely  contented  with  poverty.  All  of 
them,  however,  were  inclined  to  be  economical  and 
industrious.  They  had  no  extended  views  of  busi 
ness  enterprise,  and  we  find  none  of  them  among 
the  great  merchants  or  commercial  classes  who  were 
reaching  out  for  the  foreign  trade  of  that  age. 
Either  from  lack  of  foresight  or  lack  of  desire,  they 
seldom  selected  very  profitable  callings.  They  took 
what  was  nearest  at  hand — making  candles  or  shoe 
ing  horses — and  clung  to  it  persistently. 

Franklin  advanced  beyond  them  only  because  all 
their  qualities  of  economy,  thrift,  industry,  and  serene 
contentedness  were  intensified  in  him.  His  choice  of 
a  calling  was  no  better  than  theirs,  for  printing  was  not 
a  very  profitable  business  in  colonial  times,  and  was 
made  so  in  his  case  only  by  his  unusual  sagacity. 

I  have  already  described  his  adventures  as  a  young 
printer,  and  how  he  was  sent  on  a  wild-goose  chase 
to  London  by  Governor  Keith,  of  Pennsylvania.  I 
have  also  told  how  on  his  return  to  Philadelphia  he 

132 


BUSINESS  AND   LITERATURE 

gave  up  printing  and  became  the  clerk  of  Mr.  Den- 
ham.  He  liked  Mr.  Denham  and  the  clerkship,  and 
never  expected  to  return  to  his  old  calling.  If  Mr. 
Denham  had  lived,  Franklin  might  have  become  a 
renowned  Philadelphia  merchant  and  financier,  like 
Robert  Morris,  an  owner  of  ships  and  cargoes,  a 
trader  to  India  and  China,  and  an  outfitter  of  priva 
teers.  But  this  sudden  change  from  the  long  line 
of  his  ancestry  was  not  to  be.  Nature,  as  if  indig 
nant  at  the  attempt,  struck  down  both  Denham  and 
himself  with  pleurisy  within  six  months  of  their  asso 
ciation  in  business.  Denham  perished,  and  Franklin, 
after  a  narrow  escape  from  death,  went  back  reluc 
tantly  to  set  type  for  Keimer. 

He  was  now  twenty-one,  a  good  workman,  with 
experience  on  two  continents,  and  Keimer  made 
him  foreman  of  his  printing-office.  I  Within  six 
months,  however,  his  connection  with  Keimer  was 
ended  by  a  quarrel,  and  one  of  the  workmen,  Hugh 
Meredith,  suggested  'that  he  and  Franklin  should  set 
up  in  the  printing  business  for  themselves,  Meredith 
to  furnish  the  money  through  his  father,  and  Frank 
lin  to  furnish  the  skill.  This  offer  was  eagerly  ac 
cepted  ;  but  as  some  months  would  be  required  to 
obtain  type  and  materials  from  London,  Franklin's 
quarrel  with  Keimer  was  patched  up  and  he  went 
back  to  work  for  him. 

In  the  spring  of  1728  the  type  arrived.  Frank 
lin  parted  from  Keimer  in  peace,  and  then  with 
Meredith  sprung  upon  him  the  surprise  of  a  rival 
printing  establishment  They  rented  a  house  for 
twenty-four  pounds  a  year,  and  to  help  pay  it  took 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

in  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Thomas  Godfrey  as  lodgers.  But 
their  money  was  all  spent  in  getting  started,  and 
they  had  a  hard  struggle.  Their  first  work  was  a 
translation  of  a  Dutch  history  of  the  Quakers. 
Franklin  worked  late  and  early.  People  saw  him 
still  employed  as  they  went  home  from  their  clubs 
late  at  night,  and  he  was  at  it  again  in  the  morning 
before  his  neighbors  were  out  of  bed. 

There  were  already  two  other  printing-offices, 
Keimer's  and  Bradford's,  and  hardly  enough  work 
for  them.  The  town  prophesied  failure  for  the  firm 
of  Franklin  &  Meredith ;  and,  indeed,  their  only  hope 
of  success  seemed  to  be  in  destroying  one  or  both 
of  their  rivals,  a  serious  undertaking  for  two  young 
men  working  on  borrowed  capital.  There  was  so 
little  to  be  made  in  printing  at  that  time  that  most 
of  the  printers  were  obliged  to  branch  out  into 
journalism  and  to  keep  stationery  stores.  Franklin 
resolved  to  start  a  newspaper,  but,  unfortunately, 
told  his  secret  to  one  of  Keimer's  workmen,  and 
Keimer,  to  be  beforehand,  immediately  started  a 
newspaper  of  his  -  own,  called  The  Universal  In 
structor  in  all  Arts  and  Sciences  and  the  Pennsyl 
vania  Gazette. 

Franklin  was  much  disgusted,  and  in  resentment, 
as  he  tells  us,  and  to  counteract  Keimer,  began 
writing  amusing  letters  for  the  other  newspaper  of 
the  town,  Bradford's  Mercury,  His  idea  was  to 
crush  Keimer's  paper  by  building  up  Bradford's 
until  he  could  have  one  of  his  own.  His  articles, 
which  were  signed  "Busy  Body,"  show  the  same 
talent  for  humor  that  he  had  displayed  in  Boston  a 

'34 


THE 


Numb.  XL. 


Pennfylvania  GAZETTE. 

Containing  the  frejbeft  Moices  Foreign  and  Dome  flick. 

From  Thurfday,  September  25.   to  Thurfday,  October  2.     171^. 


rH  E  Pennfylvania  Gazette  b'eing  a  too  to 
be  carry' A  on  by  other  Hands,  the  Reader 
may  expcR  feme  Account  of  the  Method  we' 
dejign  to  proceed:  in. 

Upon  a  View  ^Chambers'.;  great  Dictionaries, 
from  whence  were  taken  the  Materials  of  the 
Univerfal  Inftru&or  in  all  Arts  and  Sciences, 
which  tifually  made  the  Firft  fart  of  this  <Vaper, 
we  find  that  be  fides  their  containing  inanyThings 
abftrufe  or  inpgmficant  to  us,  it  will  probably 
be' fifty  Tears  before  the  Whole  can  be  gone  thro' 
in  this  Manner  of  ^Publication.  There  are  lite- 
wife  in  thofe  Books  continual  References  from 
Things  under  one  Letter  of  the  Alphabet  to  tbofe 
under  another,  which  relate  to  the  fame  Subjefl, 
and  are  neccflary  "to  explain  and  compleat  it  ; 
thefe  taken  in  their  'Turtt  may  perhaps  be  Ten 
Years  diftant  }  and  fince  it  is  likely  that  they  who 
defire  to  acquaint  tbemfthes  with  any  particular 
Art  or  Science,  would  gladly  ba-jt  the  whole  be 
fore  them  in  a  macb  lefs  Time,  we  believe  our 
Readers  will  not  think  fucb  a  Method  of  commu 
nicating  Knowledge  to  be  a  proper  One. 

However,  tho'  we  do  not  Intend  to  continue  the 
'•Publication  of  thofe  Dictionaries  in  a  regular 
Alphabetical  Method,  as  has  hitherto  been  done ; 
yet  as  fever al  Things  exhibited  from  them  in  the 
Courfc  of  thefe  '•Papers,  ha-ue  been  entertaining 
to  fucb  of  the  Curious,  who  never  had  and  can 
not  have  the  Advantage  of  good  Libraries  ;  and 
as  there  are  many  Things  Jiill  behind,  which  be 
ing  in  this  M.wner  made  generally  known,  may 
perhaps  become  of  confiderable  Ufe,  by  giving  fuch 
Hints  to  the  excellent  natural  Genius's  of  our 
Country,  as  may  contribute  either  to  tie  Im- 
prnemctit  of  our  prefent  Main/failures,  or  to 
wards  the  invention  of  new  Ones ;  we  propofe 
from  Time  to  Time  to  communicate  fucb  particu 
lar  'Parts  as  Appear  to  be  of  the  nififi  general 
Cotifequeace. 

As  to  the  Religious  Courtftiip,  <Part  of 
wbicb  bas  been  retal'd  to  the  Vubiick  in  thefe 
Papers,,  the  Reader  may  be  inform'd,  that  the 
whole  Book  will  probably  in  a  little  Time  be 
printed  and  bound  up  by  itfelf;  and  thofe  who 
approve  of  it,  will  doubtlefs  be  better  pleas'd  to 
tjve  it  etitir?  than  in  this  broken  interrupted 
Manner. 

FRONT    PAGE    OF    THE    FIRST    NUMBER    OF    THE    "PENNSYLVANIA 
GAZETTE,"    PUBLISHED    BY    FRANKLIN    AND    MEREDITH 


There  are  many  who  ha'jc  long  deftred  to  fee  a 
good  News-Taper  in  Pennfylvania ;  and  we  hope 
thofe  Gentlemen  who  are  able,  will  contribute  to 
wards  the  making  This  f itch.  We  ask  Affijiance, 
becatife  we  are  fully  fen/ible,  that  to  publijb  a 
good  News-Taper  is  not  fo  eafy  an  Undertaking 
as  many  People  imagine  it  to  be.  The  Author  of 
a  Gazette  fin  the  Opinion  of  the  Learned}  ought 
to  bt  qualified  with  an  extenfne  Acquaintance 
with  Languages,  a  great  Eajinefs  and  Command 
of  Writing  and  Relating  Things  cleanly  and  in 
telligibly,  and  in  few  Words  ;  he  jbottld  be  able 
tofpeak  of  War  both  by  Land  and  Sea-  le  well 
acquainted  with  Geography,  with  the  Hflory  of 
the  Time,  with  the  feveral  Interejts  ff^Princes] 
and  States,  the  Secrets  of  Courts,  and  the  Man 
ners  and  Cuftom*  of  all  Nations.  Men  this  ac- 
complilb'd  are  very  rare  in  this  remote  Wart  of 
the  World;  and  it  would  be  well  if  the  Writer 
of  thefe  (Papers  could  make  up  among  bis  Friends 
what  is  wanting  in  bimfclf. 

Upon  the  Whole,  vi(  may  a/nre  the  TjtHick, 
that  as  far  as  the  Encouragement  we  meet  witfj 
will  enable  us,  no  dire  anil  ty.iiiis  //«//  be  omit 
ted,  that  may  make  the  Pennfylvania  Gazette 
as  agreeable  and  ufeftil  an  Entertainment  as  the 
Nature  of  the  Thing  will  allow. 


The  Following  is  the  lalt  McfTagc  fcnt  by 
his  Excellency  Governour  Burnet,  to  fhe 
Houfe  of  Rcprcfcntatives  w  Bojlou. 


Gtntltmen  of  tie  Haufe  if  Z 

IT  is  not  with  fo  vale  a  Hope  as  to  convince  you,  that 
I  take  the  Trouble  to  anfwcr  your  MeflagM,  bur,  if 
poflible,  to  open  the  Eyes  of  the  deluded  People  whom- 
you  rcprefent,  ;>*!  whom  you  ;ire  at  Ib  much  Pains  to  keep 
in  Ignorance  :i  the  true  State  of  their  Affairs.  I  need  not 
go  further  'or  an  undeniable  Proof  of  this  Endeavour  to 
blind  thrm,  than  your  ordering  the  Letter  of  Mcfficurt 
Wilts  and  Erltlrr  of  the  7th-of  J:i«t  laft  to  yout  Speaker  to 
he  pjbliOicd.  This  Letter  S  liid  (in  Paft  i  of  your 
Voles)  to  iKloft  a  Copy  cl  lit  Repa-t  of  the  Lmil  ef  ttx  Cim- 
mitie  <fH,i  Mfjifyi  Privy  Qnuvil,  o/rt  Hi  JHojsfj'i  Jp 
froktna  ami  Ortttt  th:rtm  in  CatKil  ,  Yet  thefe  Gentlemen 
had-at  the  fame  time  the  unparallellM  Prcfumptioo  to 
wrilt  to  the  Speaker  in  this  Manner  ;  ?'«.•'//  o'jfcrse  ty  the 
Coal*  liim,  v>b.it  ii  fnftfiJ.it  bt  tli  Confeauene  ef  }<»"  "*  '"»• 
}l)fa  •with  Hit  Myft'i  I»frn8\<n  (  tk  '*'•»>'  M'ttrr  te  fy 


BUSINESS  AND   LITERATURE 

few  years  before,  when  he  wrote  for  his  brother's 
newspaper  over  the  name  "Silence  Dogood  ;"  but 
there  is  a  great  difference  in  their  tone.  No  ridi 
cule  of  the  prevailing  religion  or  hatred  of  those  in 
authority  appears  in  them.  The  young  man  evi 
dently  found  Philadelphia  more  to  his  taste  than 
Boston,  and  was  not  at  war  with  his  surroundings. 
The  "  Busy  Body"  papers  are  merely  pleasant  rail 
lery  at  the  failings  of  human  nature  in  general, 
interspersed  with  good  advice,  something  like  that 
which  he  soon  afterwards  gave  in  "  Poor  Richard." 

Keimer  tried  to  keep  his  journal  going  by  pub 
lishing  long  extracts  from  an  encyclopaedia  which 
had  recently  appeared,  beginning  with  the  letter  A, 
and  he  tried  to  imitate  the  wit  of  the  "  Busy  Body." 
But  he  merely  laid  himself  open  to  the  "Busy 
Body's"  attacks,  who  burlesqued  and  ridiculed  his 
attempts,  and  Franklin  in  his  Autobiography  gives 
himself  the  credit  of  having  drawn  public  attention 
so  strongly  to  Bradford's  Mercury  that  Keimer,  after 
keeping  his  Universal  Instructor  going  on  only 
ninety  subscribers  for  about  nine  months,  gave  it 
up.  Franklin  &  Meredith  bought  it  in  and  thus 
disposed  of  one  of  their  rivals.  That  rival,  being 
incompetent  and  ignorant,  soon  disposed  of  himself 
by  bankruptcy  and  removal  to  the  Barbadoes. 
Franklin  continued  the  publication  of  the  news 
paper  under  the  title  of  the  Pennsylvania  Gazette  ; 
but  it  was  vastly  improved  in  every  way, — better 
type,  better  paper,  more  news,  and  intelligent,  well- 
reasoned  articles  on  public  affairs  instead  of  Keimer' s 
stupid  prolixity. 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

An  article  written  by  Franklin  on  that  great  ques 
tion  of  colonial  times,  whether  the  Legislature  of 
each  colony  should  give  the  governor  a  fixed  salary 
or  pay  him  only  at  the  end  of  each  year,  according 
as  he  had  pleased  them,  attracted  much  attention. 
It  was  written  with  considerable  astuteness,  and,  while 
upholding  the  necessity  of  the  governor's  dependence 
on  the  Legislature,  was  careful  not  to  give  offence  to 
those  who  were  of  a  different  opinion.  The  young 
printers  also  won  favor  by  reprinting  neatly  and  cor 
rectly  an  address  of  the  Assembly  to  the  governor, 
which  Bradford  had  previously  printed  in  a  blunder 
ing  way.  The  members  of  the  Assembly  were  so 
pleased  with  it  that  they  voted  their  printing  to 
Franklin  &  Meredith  for  the  ensuing  year.  These 
politicians,  finding  that  Franklin  knew  how  to  han 
dle  a  pen,  thought  it  well,  as  a  matter  of  self-interest, 
to  encourage  him. 

The  two  young  men  were  kept  busily  employed, 
yet  found  it  very  difficult  to  make  both  ends  meet, 
although  they  did  everything  themselves,  not  having 
even  a  boy  to  assist  them.  Meredith's  father,  having 
suffered  some  losses,  could  lend  them  but  half  of  the 
sum  they  had  expected  from  him.  The  merchant 
who  had  furnished  them  their  materials  grew  im 
patient  and  su'ed  them.  They  succeeded  in  staying 
judgment  and  execution  for  a  time,  but  fully  ex 
pected  to  be  eventually  sold  out  by  the  sheriff  and 
ruined. 

At  this  juncture  two  friends  of  Franklin  came  to 
him  and  offered  sufficient  money  to  tide  over  his 
difficulties  if  he  would  get  rid  of  Meredith,  who  was 

136 


BUSINESS  AND   LITERATURE 

intemperate,  and  take  all  the  business  on  himself. 
This  he  succeeded  in  doing,  and  with  the  money 
supplied  by  his  friends  paid  off  his  debts  and  added 
a  stationery  shop,  where  he  sold  paper,  parchment, 
legal  blanks,  ink,  books,  and,  in  time,  soap,  goose- 
feathers,  liquors,  and  groceries;  he  also  secured  the 
printing  of  the  laws  of  Delaware,  and,  as  he  says, 
went  on  swimmingly.  Soon  after  this  he  married 
Miss  Read,  and  he  has  left  us  an  account  of  how 
they  lived  together : 

"We  kept  no  idle  servants,  our  table  was  plain  and  simple,  our 
furniture  of  the  cheapest.  For  instance,  my  breakfast  was  for  a  long 
time  bread  and  milk  (no  tea),  and  I  ate  it  out  of  a  twopenny  earthen 
porringer,  with  a  pewter  spoon.  But  mark  how  luxury  will  enter 
families,  and  make  a  progress  in  spite  of  principle  :  being  called  one 
morning  to  breakfast,  I  found  it  in  a  china  bowl,  with  a  spoon  of 
silver  !  They  had  been  bought  for  me  without  my  knowledge  by  my 
wife,  and  had  cost  her  the  enormous  sum  of  three  and  twenty  shil 
lings,  for  which  she  had  no  other  excuse  or  apology  to  make  but  that 
she  thought  her  husband  deserved  a  silver  spoon  and  china  bowl  as 
well  as  any  of  his  neighbors." 

A  story  is  told  on  the  Eastern  Shore  of  Maryland 
of  a  young  man  who  called  one  evening  on  an  old 
farmer  to  ask  him  how  it  was  that  he  had  become 
rich. 

"  It  is  a  long  story,"  said  the  old  man,  "and  while 
I  am  telling  it  we  might  as  well  save  the  candle,"  and 
he  put  it  out. 

"You  need  not  tell  it,"  said  the  youth.      "I  see." 

Franklin's  method  was  the  one  that  had  always 
been  practised  by  his  ancestors,  and  with  his  wider 
intelligence  and  great  literary  ability  it  was  sure  to 
succeed.  The  silver  spoons  slowly  increased  until 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

in  the  course  of  years, -as  he  tells  us,  the  plate  in 
his  house  was  "  augmented  gradually  to  several 
hundred  pounds  in  value." 

His  newspaper,  the  Pennsylvania  Gazette,  was  the 
best  in  the  colonies.  Besides  the  ordinary  news  and 
advertisements,  together  with  little  anecdotes  and 
squibs  which  he  was  always  so  clever  in  telling,  he 
printed  in  it  extracts  from  The  Spectator  and  various 
moral  writers,  articles  from  English  newspapers,  as 
well  as  articles  of  his  own  which  had  been  previously 
read  to  the  Junto.  He  also  published  long  poems 
by  Stephen  Duck,  now  utterly  forgotten  ;  but  he 
was  then  the  poet  laureate  and  wrote  passable  verse. 
He  carefully  excluded  all  libelling  and  personal 
abuse ;  but  what  would  now  be  considered  indeli 
cate  jests  were  not  infrequent.  These  broad  jokes, 
together  with  witticisms  at  the  expense  of  ecclesi 
astics,  constituted  the  stock  amusements  of  the  time, 
as  the  English  literature  of  that  period  abundantly 
shows. 

Opening  one  of  the  old  volumes  of  his  Gazette 
at  random,  we  find  for  September  5,  1734,  a  humor 
ous  account  of  a  lottery  in  England,  by. which,  to 
encourage  the  propagation  of  the  species,  all  the  old 
maids  of  the  country  are  to  be  raffled  for.  Turning 
over  the  leaves,  we  find  the  humorous  will  of  a  fel 
low  who,  among  other  queer  bequests,  leaves  his 
body  "as  a  very  wholesome  feast  to  the  worms  of 
his  family  vault"  In  another  number  an  account 
is  given  of  some  excesses  of  the  Pope,  with  a  Latin 
verse  and  its  translation  which  had  been  pasted  on 
Pasquin's  statue  : 

138 


BUSINESS   AND   LITERATURE 

"  Omnia  Venduntur  imo 

Dogmata  Christ! 
Et  ne  me  vendunt,  evolo. 
Roma  Vale." 

"  Rome  all  things  sells,  even  doctrines  old  and  new. 
I'll  fly  for  fear  of  sale  ;  so  Rome  adieu." 

In  the  number  for  November  7,  1734,  we  are 
given  "The  Genealogy  of  a  Jacobite." 

"The  Devil  begat  Sin,  Sin  begat  Error,  Error  begat  Pride,  Pride 
begat  Hatred,  Hatred  begat  Ignorance,  Ignorance  begat  Blind  Zeal, 
Blind  Zeal  begat  Superstition,  Superstition  begat  Priestcraft,  Priest 
craft  begat  Lineal  Succession,  Lineal  Succession  begat  Indelible  Char 
acter,  Indelible  Character  begat  Blind  Obedience,  Blind  Obedience 
begat  Infallibility,  Infallibility  begat  the  Pope  and  his  Brethren  in  the 
time  of  Egyptian  Darkness,  the  Pope  begat  Purgatory,  Purgatory 
begat  Auricular  Confession,  Auricular  Confession  begat  Renouncing 
of  Reason,  Renouncing  of  Reason  begat  Contempt  of  Scriptures, 
Contempt  of  the  Scriptures  begat  Implicit  Faith,  Implicit  Faith  begat 
Carnal  Policy,  Carnal  Policy  begat  Unlimited  Passive  Obedience, 
Unlimited  Passive  Obedience  begat  Non-Resistance,  Non-Resistance 
begat  Oppression,  Oppression  begat  Faction,  Faction  begat  Patriotism, 
Patriotism  begat  Opposition  to  all  the  Measures  of  the  Ministry,  Op 
position  begat  Disaffection,  Disaffection  begat  Discontent,  Discontent 
begat  a  Tory,  and  a  Tory  begat  a  Jacobite,  with  Craftsman  and  Fog 
and  their  Brethren  on  the  Body  of  the  Whore  of  Babylon  when  she 
was  deemed  past  child  bearing." 

One  number  of  the  Gazette  contained  Franklin's 
famous  "  Speech  of  Polly  Baker,"  which  was  re 
printed  over  and  over  again  in  American  news 
papers  for  nearly  half  a  century  : 

"  The  Speech  of  Miss  Polly  Baker  before  a  Court  of  Judicatory, 
in  New  England,  where  she  was  prosecuted  for  a  fifth  time,  for 
having  a  Bastard  Child  ;  which  influenced  the  Court  to  dispense 
with  her  punishment,  and  which  induced  one  of  her  judges  to  marry 
her  the  next  day — by  whom  she  had  fifteen  children. 

139 


THE   TRUE^  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

"  May  it  please  the  honourable  bench  to  indulge  me  in  a  few 
words  :  I  am  a  poor,  unhappy  woman,  who  have  no  money  to  fee 
lawyers  to  plead  for  me,  being  hard  put  to  it  to  get  a  living.  .  .  . 
Abstracted  from  the  law,  I  cannot  conceive  (may  it  please  your 
honours)  what  the  nature  of  my  offence  is.  I  have  brought  five 
children  into  the  world,  at  the  risque  of  my  life  ;  I  have  maintained 
them  well  by  my  own  industry,  without  burthening  the  township, 
and  would  have  done  it  better,  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  heavy 
charges  and  fines  I  have  paid.  Can  it  be  a  crime  (in  the  nature 
of  things,  I  mean)  to  add  to  the  King's  subjects,  in  a  new  country 
that  really  needs  people  ?  I  own  it,  I  should  think  it  rather  a 
praiseworthy  than  a  punishable  action.  I  have  debauched  no  other 
woman's  husband,  nor  enticed  any  youth  ;  these  things  I  never  was 
charged  with  ;  nor  has  any  one  the  least  cause  of  complaint  against 
me,  unless,  perhaps,  the  ministers  of  justice,  because  I  have  had 
children  without  being  married,  by  which  they  have  missed  a  wed 
ding  fee.  But  can  this  be  a  fault  of  mine  ?  I  appeal  to  your  honours. 
You  are  pleased  to  allow  I  don't  want  sense  ;  but  I  must  be  stupefied 
to  the  last  degree,  not  to  prefer  the  honourable  state  of  wedlock  to 
the  condition  I  have  lived  in.  I  always  was,  and  still  am  willing  to 
enter  into  it ;  and  doubt  not  my  behaving  well  in  it ;  having  all  the 
industry,  frugality,  fertility,  and  skill  in  economy  appertaining  to  a 
good  wife's  character.  I  defy  any  one  to  say  I  ever  refused  an  offer 
of  that  sort ;  on  the  contrary,  I  readily  consented  to  the  only  pro 
posal  of  marriage  that  ever  was  made  me,  which  was  when  I  was  a 
virgin,  but  too  easily  confiding  in  the  person's  sincerity  that  made  it, 
I  unhappily  lost  my  honour  by  trusting  to  his ;  for  he  got  me  with 
child,  and  then  forsook  me. 

4 '  That  very  person,  you  all  know  ;  he  is  now  become  a  magistrate 
of  this  country  ;  and  I  had  hopes  he  would  have  appeared  this  day 
on  the  bench,  and  have  endeavoured  to  moderate  the  Court  in  my 
favour  ;  then  I  should  have  scorned  to  have  mentioned  it,  but  I  must 
now  complain  of  it  as  unjust  and  unequal,  that  my  betrayer,  and 
undoer,  the  first  cause  of  all  my  faults  and  miscarriages  (if  they  must 
be  deemed  such),  should  be  advanced  to  honour  and  power  in  the 
government  that  punishes  my  misfortunes  with  stripes  and  infamy. 
.  .  .  But  how  can  it  be  believed  that  Heaven  is  angry  at  my  having 
children,  when  to  the  little  done  by  me  towards  it,  God  has  been 
pleased  to  add  his  divine  skill  and  admirable  workmanship  in  the  for 
mation  of  their  bodies,  and  crowned  the  whole  by  furnishing  them 
with  rational  and  immortal  souls  ?  Forgive  me,  gentlemen,  if  I  talk 
a  little  extravagantly  on  these  matters  :  I  am  no  divine,  but  if  you, 

140 


BUSINESS   AND   LITERATURE 

gentlemen,  must  be  making  laws,  do  not  turn  natural  and  useful 
actions  into  crimes  by  your  prohibitions.  But  take  into  your  wise 
consideration  the  great  and  growing  number  of  bachelors  in  the 
country,  many  of  whom,  from  the  mean  fear  of  the  expense  of  a 
family,  have  never  sincerely  and  honestly  courted  a  woman  in  their 
lives  ;  and  by  their  manner  of  living  leave  unproduced  (which  is  little 
better  than  murder)  hundreds  of  their  posterity  to  the  thousandth 
generation.  Is  not  this  a  greater  offence  against  the  public  good 
than  mine  ?  Compel  them,  then,  by  law,  either  to  marriage,  or  to 
pay  double  the  fine  of  fornication  every  year.  What  must  poor 
young  women  do,  whom  customs  and  nature  forbid  to  solicit  the 
men,  and  who  cannot  force  themselves  upon  husbands,  when  the 
laws  take  no  care  to  provide  them  any,  and  yet  severely  punish 
them  if  they  do  their  duty  without  them  ;  the  duty  of  the  first  and 
great  command  of  nature  and  nature's  God,  increase  and  multiply ; 
a  duty,  from  the  steady  performance  of  which  nothing  has  been  able 
to  deter  me,  but  for  its  sake  I  have  hazarded  the  loss  of  the  public 
esteem,  and  have  frequently  endured  public  disgrace  and  punish 
ment  ;  and  therefore  ought,  in  my  humble  opinion,  instead  of  a 
whipping,  to  have  a  statue  erected  to  my  memory. ' ' 

A  newspaper  furnishing  the  people  with  so  much 
information  and  sound  advice,  mingled  with  broad 
stories,  bright  and  witty,  and  appealing  to  all  the 
human  passions, — in  other  words,  so  thoroughly  like 
Franklin, — was  necessarily  a  success.  It  was,  how 
ever,  a  small  affair, — a  single  sheet  which,  when 
folded,  was  about  twelve  by  eighteen  inches, — and 
it  appeared  only  twice  a  week. 

It  differed  from  other  colonial  newspapers  chiefly 
in  its  greater  brightness  and  in  the  literary  skill 
shown  in  its  preparation.  But  attempts  have  been 
made  to  exaggerate  its  merits,  and  Parton  declares 
that  in  it  Franklin  "  originated  the  modern  system 
of  business  advertising"  and  that  "  he  was  the  first 
man  who  used  this  mighty  engine  of  publicity  as 
we  now  use  it."  A  careful  examination  of  the 

141 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

Gazette  and  the  other  journals  of  the  time  fails  to 
disclose  any  evidence  in  support  of  this  extravagant 
statement.  The  advertisements  in  the  Gazette  are 
like  those  in  the  other  papers, — runaway  servants 
and  slaves,  ships  and  merchandise  for  sale,  articles 
lost  or  stolen.  On  the  whole,  perhaps  more  ad 
vertisements  appear  in  the  Gazette  than  in  any  of 
the  others,  though  a  comparison  of  the  Gazette  with 
Bradford's  Mercury  shows  days  when  the  latter  has 
the  greater  number. 

Franklin  advertised  rather  extensively  his  own 
publications,  and  the  lamp-black,  soap,  and  "  ready 
money  for  old  rags"  which  were  to  be  had  at  his 
shop,  for  the  reason,  doubtless,  that,  being  owner  of 
both  the  newspaper  and  the  shop,  the  advertise 
ments  cost  him  nothing.  This  is  the  only  founda 
tion  for  the  tale  of  his  having  originated  modern 
advertising.  His  advertisements  are  of  the  same 
sort  that  appeared  in  other  papers,  and  there  is 
not  the  slightest  suggestion  of  modern  methods  in 
them. 

Parton  also  says  that  Franklin  "  invented  the  plan 
of  distinguishing  advertisements  by  means  of  little 
pictures  which  he  cut  with  his  own  hands."  If  he 
really  was  the  inventor  of  this  plan,  it  is  strange  that 
he  allowed  his  rival  Bradford  to  use  it  in  the  Mercury 
before  it  was  adopted  by  the  Gazette.  No  cuts  ap 
pear  in  the  advertisements  in  the  Gazette  until  May 
30,  1734;  but  the  Mercury's  advertisements  have 
them  in  the  year  1733. 

Franklin  made  no  sudden  or  startling  changes  in 
the  methods  of  journalism ;  he  merely  used  them 

142 


BUSINESS   AND   LITERATURE 

effectively.  His  reputation  and  fortune  were  in 
creased  by  his  newspaper,  but  his  greatest  success 
came  from  his  almanac,  the  immortal  "  Poor  Rich 
ard." 

In  those  days  almanacs  were  the  literature  of  the 
masses,  very  much  as  newspapers  are  now.  Every 
body  read  them,  and  they  supplied  the  place  of 
books  to  those  who  would  not  or  could  not  buy 
these  means  of  knowledge.  Every  farm-house  and 
hunter's  cabin  had  one  hanging  by  the  fireplace,  and 
the  rich  were  also  eager  to  read  afresh  every  year 
the  weather  forecasts,  receipts,  scraps  of  history,  and 
advice  mingled  with  jokes  and  verses. 

Every  printer  issued  an  almanac  as  a  matter  of 
course,  for  it  was  the  one  publication  which  was  sure 
to  sell,  and  there  was  always  more  or  less  money  to 
be  made  by  it.  While  Franklin  and  Meredith  were 
in  business  they  published  their  almanac  annually, 
and  it  was  prepared  by  Thomas  Godfrey,  the  mathe 
matician,  who  with  his  wife  lived  in  part  of  Franklin's 
house.  But,  as  has  been  related,  Mrs.  Godfrey  tried 
to  make  a  match  between  Franklin  and  one  of  her 
relatives,  and  when  that  failed  the  Godfreys  and 
Franklin  separated,  and  Thomas  Godfrey  devoted 
his  mathematical  talents  to  the  preparation  of  Brad 
ford's  almanac. 

This  was  in  the  year  1732,  and  the  following  year 
Franklin  had  no  philomath,  as  such  people  were 
called,  to  prepare  his  almanac.  A  great  deal  de 
pended  on  having  a  popular  philomath.  Some  of 
them  could  achieve  large  sales  for  their  employer, 
while  others  could  scarcely  catch  the  public  attention 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

at  all.  Franklin's  literary  instinct  at  once  suggested 
the  plan  of  creating  a  philomath  out  of  his  own 
imagination,  an  ideal  one  who  would  achieve  the 
highest  possibilities  of  the  art  So  he  wrote  his 
own  almanac,  and  announced  that  it  was  prepared 
by  one  Richard  Saunders,  who  for  short  was  called 
"Poor  Richard,"  and  he  proved  to  be  the  most 
wonderful  philomath  that  ever  lived. 

As  Shakespeare  took  the  suggestions  and  plots  of 
his  plays  from  old  tales  and  romances,  endowing  his 
spoils  by  the  touch  of  genius  with  a  life  that  the 
originals  never  possessed,  so  Franklin  plundered 
right  and  left  to  obtain  material  for  the  wise  sayings 
of  "Poor  Richard."  There  was,  we  are  told,  a 
Richard  Saunders  who  was  the  philomath  of  a  popu 
lar  English  almanac  called  "  The  Apollo  Anglicanus," 
and  another  popular  almanac  had  been  called  "  Poor 
Robin  ;"  but  "Poor  Richard"  was  a  real  creation,  a 
new  human  character  introduced  to  the  world  like 
Sir  Roger  de  Coverley. 

Novel-writing  was  in  its  infancy  in  those  days,  and 
Bunyan's  "  Pilgrim's  Progress,"  Addison's  character 
of  Sir  Roger,  and  the  works  of  Richardson,  Fielding, 
and  Smollett  were  the  only  examples  of  this  .new 
literature.  That  beautiful  sentiment  that  prompts 
children  to  say,  "Tell  us  a  story/'  and  which  is  now 
fed  to  repletion  by  trash,  was  then  primitive,  fresh, 
and  simple.  Franklin  could  have  written  a  novel 
in  the  manner  of  Fielding,  but  he  had  no  inclina 
tion  for  such  a  task.  He  took  more  naturally  and 
easily  to  creating  a  single  character  somewhat  in 
the  way  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  was  created  by 

144 


Poor  Richard,  1733. 


A  N 


Almanack 

For  the  Year  of  Chrift 


Being  the  Firft  after  LEAP  YEAR: 

And  makes  fnce  the  Creation  Years 

By  the  Account  of  the  Eartern  Greeks  7241 

By  the  Latin  Church,   when  O  em.  y  6932 

By  Hie  Computation  of  /^'/^  5742 

By  the  Roman  Chronology  5682 

By  the  Jeiv'tfb  Rabbies  5494 

Wherein  is  contained 
The  Lunations,  EclipfesH  Judgment  of 
the  Weather,  Spring  Tides,  Planets  Motions  6c 
mutual  Afpe&s,  Sun  and  Moon's  Rifing  and  Set 
ting,  Length  of  Days,  Time  of  High  Water, 
Fairs,  Courts,  and  obfcrvable  Days 
Fitted  to  the  Latitude  of  Forty  Degrees, 
and  a  Meridian  of  Five  Hours  Weft  from  London^ 
but  may  without  fenfihle  Error,  ferve  all  the  ad 
jacent  Places,  even  from  NewfoumiLtnil  to  South- 
Carolina. 


By  RICH4&D  SJUNDERS^hilom. 


PHILADELPHIA: 

Printed  and  fold  by  B.  FRJNKLfN,  at  the  New 
Printing  Office  near  the  Market. 

The  Third  Imprcflion. """ 

TITLE- PAGE   OF    POOR    RICHARD'S   ALMANAC    FOR    1733 


BUSINESS  AND   LITERATURE 

Addison,  whose  essays  he  had  rewritten  so  often  for 
practice. 

Sir  Roger  was  so  much  of  a  gentleman,  there  were 
so  many  delicate  touches  in  him,  that  he  never  be 
came  the  favorite  of  the  common  people.  But  "Poor 
Richard"  was  the  Sir  Roger  of  the  masses  ;  he  won 
the  hearts  of  high  and  low.  In  that  first  number  for 
the  year  1733  he  introduces  himself  very  much  after 
the  manner  of  Addison. 

"COURTEOUS  READER, 

1 '  I  might  in  this  place  attempt  to  gain  thy  favor  by  declaring  that 
I  write  almanacks  with  no  other  view  than  that  of  the  public  good, 
but  in  this  I  should  not  be  sincere  ;  and  men  are  now-a-days  too 
wise  to  be  deceived  by  pretences,  how  specious  soever.  The  plain 
truth  of  the  matter  is,  1  am  excessive  poor,  and  my  wife,  good 
woman,  is,  I  tell  her,  excessive  proud ;  she  cannot  bear,  she  says,  to 
sit  spinning  in  her  shift  of  tow,  while  I  do  nothing  but  gaze  at  the 
stars ;  and  has  threatened  more  than  once  to  burn  all  my  books  and 
rattling  traps  (as  she  calls  my  instruments)  if  I  do  not  make  some 
profitable  use  of  them  for  the  good  of  my  family.  The  printer  has 
offered  me  some  considerable  share  of  the  profits,  and  I  have  thus 
begun  to  comply  with  my  dame's  desire." 

There  was  a  rival  almanac,  of  which  the  philo 
math  was  Titan  Leeds.  "  Poor  Richard"  affects 
great  friendship  for  him,  and  says  that  he  would  have 
written  almanacs  long  ago  had  he  not  been  unwilling 
to  interfere  with  the  business  of  Titan.  But  this 
obstacle  was  soon  to  be  removed. 

"  He  dies  by  my  calculation,"  says  "  Poor  Richard,"  "made  at  his 
request,  on  Oct.  17,  1733,  3  ho  ,  29  m.,  P.  M.,  at  the  very  instant  of  the 
d  of  Q  and  §  .  By  his  own  calculation  he  will  survive  till  the  26th 
of  the  same  month.  This  small  difference  between  us  we  have  dis 
puted  whenever  we  have  met  these  nine  years  past ;  but  at  length 
he  is  inclinable  to  agree  with  my  judgment.  Which  of  us  is  most 
exact,  a  little  time  will  now  determine." 

10  I 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

In  the  next  issue  "Poor  Richard"  announces  that 
his  circumstances  are  now  much  easier.  His  wife  has 
a  pot  of  her  own  and  is  no  longer  obliged  to  borrow 
one  of  a  neighbor ;  and,  best  of  all,  they  have  some 
thing  to  put  in  it,  which  has  made  her  temper  more 
pacific.  Then  he  begins  to  tease  Titan  Leeds.  He 
recalls  his  prediction  of  his  death,  but  is  not  quite 
sure  whether  it  occurred ;  for  he  has  been  prevented 
by  domestic  affairs  from  being  at  the  bedside  and 
closing  the  eyes  of  his  old  friend.  The  stars  have 
foretold  the  death  with  their  usual  exactitude ;  but 
sometimes  Providence  interferes  in  these  matters, 
which  makes  the  astrologer's  art  a  little  uncertain. 
But  on  the  whole  he  thinks  Titan  must  be  dead,  "for 
there  appears  in  his  name,  as  I  am  assured,  an  Al 
manack  for  the  year  1734  in  which  I  am  treated  in  a 
very  gross  and  unhandsome  manner ;  in  which  I  am 
called  a  false  predicter,  an  ignorant,  a  conceited 
scribbler,  a  fool,  and  a  lyar;"  and  he  goes  on  to  show 
that  his  good  friend  Titan  would  never  have  treated 
him  in  this  way. 

The  next  year  he  is  still  making  sport  of  Titan, 
the  deceased  Titan,  and  the  ghost  of  Titan,  "who 
pretends  to  be  still  living,  and  to  write  Almanacks  in 
spight  of  me;"  and  he  proves  again  by  means  of  the 
funniest  arguments  that  he  must  be  dead.  Another 
year  he  devotes  several  pages  of  nonsense  to  dis 
proving  the  charge  that  "Poor  Richard"  is  not  a  real 
person.  He  ridicules  astrology  and  weather  fore 
casting  by  pretending  to  be  very  serious  over  it.  At 
any  rate,  he  says,  "we  always  hit  the  day  of  the 
month,  and  that  I  suppose  is  esteemed  one  of  the 

146 


BUSINESS  AND   LITERATURE 

most  useful  things  in  an  Almanack."  He  and  his 
good  old  wife  are  getting  on  now  better  than  ever ; 
and  the  almanac  for  1738  is  prepared  by  Mis 
tress  Saunders  herself,  who  rails  at  her  husband 
and  makes  queer  work  with  eclipses  and  forecasting. 
Then  in  the  number  for  1740  Titan  writes  a  letter 
to  "Poor  Richard"  from  the  other  world. 

Besides  the  formal  essays  or  prefaces  which 
peared  in  each  number,  there  were  numerous  verses, 
paragraphs  of  admirable  satire  on  the  events  of  the 
day  or  the  weaknesses  of  human  nature,  and  those 
prudential  maxims  which  in  the  end  became  the 
most  famous  of  all.  As  we  look  through  a  collection 
of  these  almanacs  for  an  hour  or  so  we  seem  to  have 
lived  among  the  colonists,  who  were  not  then  Ameri 
cans,  but  merry  Englishmen,  heavy  eaters  and 
drinkers,  full  of  broad  jokes,  whimsical,  humorous 
ways,  and  forever  gossiping  with  hearty  good  nature 
over  the  ludicrous  accidents  of  life,  the  love-affairs, 
the  married  infelicities,  and  the  cuckolds.  It  is  the 
freshness,  the  sap,  and  the  rollicking  happiness  of 
old  English  life. 

"  Old  Batchelor  would  have  a  wife  that's  wise, 
Fair,  rich  and  young  a  maiden  for  his  bed ; 
Not  proud,  nor  churlish,  but  of  faultless  size, 
A  country  housewife  in  the  city  bred. 

He's  a  nice  fool  and  long  in  vain  hath  staid ; 

He  should  bespeak  her,  there's  none  ready  made." 

"  Never  spare  the  parson's  wine,  nor  the  baker's  pudding." 

"  Ne'er  take  a  wife  till  thou  hast  a  house  (and  a  fire)  to  put  her  in." 

H7 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

"  My  love  and  I  for  kisses  play'd, 

She  would  keep  stakes,  I  was  content, 
But  when  I  won,  she  would  be  paid, 
This  made  me  ask  her  what  she  meant : 

Quoth  she,  since  you  are  in  the  wrangling  vein 
Here  take  your  kisses,  give  me  mine  again." 

"  Who  has  deceived  thee  so  oft  as  thyself?" 
"  There  is  no  little  enemy." 

"  Of  the  Eclipses  this  year. 

"During  the  first  visible  eclipse  Saturn  is  retrograde  :  For  which 
reason  the  crabs  will  go  sidelong  and  the  ropemakers  backward. 

The  belly  will  wag  before,  and  the  will  sit  down  first.  .   .  . 

When  a  New  Yorker  thinks  to  say  THIS  he  shall  say  DISS,  and  the 
People  in  New  England  and  Cape  May  will  not  be  able  to  say  Cow 
for  their  Lives,  but  will  be  forc'd  to  say  KEOW  by  a  certain  involuntary 
Twist  in  the  Root  of  their  Tongues.  ..." 

"  Many  dishes  many  diseases." 
"  Let  thy  maid  servant  be  faithful,  strong  and  homely." 

"  Here  I  sit  naked,  like  some  fairy  elf; 
My  seat  a  pumpkin  ;  I  grudge  no  man's  pelf, 
Though  I've  no  bread  nor  cheese  upon  my  shelf, 

I'll  tell  thee  gratis,  when  it  safe  is 
To  purge,  to  bleed,  or  cut  thy  cattle  or — thyself." 

"  Necessity  never  made  a  good  bargain." 

"  A  little  house  well  filled,  a  little  field  well  till'd  and  a  little  wife 
well  will'd  are  great  riches." 

"  Of  the  Diseases  this  year. 

"  This  Year  the  Stone-blind  shall  see  but  very  little  ;  the  Deaf  shall 
hear  but  poorly  ;  and  the  Dumb  shan't  speak  very  plain.  And  it's 
much,  if  my  Dame  Bridget  talks  at  all  this  Year.  Whole  Flocks, 
Herds  and  Droves  of  Sheep,  Swine  and  Oxen,  Cocks  and  Hens, 
Ducks  and  Drakes,  Geese  and  Ganders  shall  go  to  Pot;  but  the 
Mortality  will  not  be  altogether  so  great  among  Cats,  Dogs  and 
Horses.  ..." 

148 


BUSINESS   AND   LITERATURE 

"  Of  the  Fruits  of  the  Earth. 

"  I  find  that  this  will  be  a  plentiful  Year  of  all  manner  of  good 
Things,  to  those  who  have  enough ;  but  the  Orange  Trees  in  Green 
land  will  go  near  to  fare  the  worse  for  the  Cold.  As  for  Oats, 
they'll  be  a  great  Help  to  Horses.  .  .  ." 

"  Lend  money  to  an  enemy,  and  thou'lt  gain  him ;  to  a  friend,  and 
thou'lt  lose  him." 

"Keep  your  eyes  wide  open  before  marriage,  half  shut  after 
wards." 

"  It  is  hard  for  an  empty  sack  to  stand  uprignt. " 

For  twenty  years  and  more  "Poor  Richard"  kept 
up  this  continuous  stream  of  fun,  breaking  forth 
afresh  every  autumn, — sound,  wholesome,  dealing 
with  the  real  things  and  the  elemental  joys  of  life, 
and  expressed  in  that  inimitable  language  of  which 
Franklin  was  master.  In  this  way  was  built  up  the 
greater  part  of  his  wonderful  reputation,  which  in 
some  of  its  manifestations  surprises  us  so  much. 
Such  a  reputation  is  usually  of  long  growth  ;  one  or 
two  conspicuous  acts  will  not  achieve  it.  But  the 
man  who  every  year  for  nearly  a  generation  de 
lighted  every  human  being  in  the  country,  from  the 
ploughman  and  hunter  to  the  royal  governors,  was 
laying  in  store  for  himself  a  sure  foundation  of  influ 
ence. 

The  success  of  "Poor  Richard"  was  immediate. 
The  first  number  of  it  went  through  several  edi 
tions,  and  after  that  the  annual  sales  amounted  to 
about  ten  thousand  copies.  For  the  last  number 
which  Franklin  prepared  for  the  year  1758,  before 
he  turned  over  the  enterprise  to  his  partner,  he  wrote 
a  most  happy  preface.  It  was  always  his  habit,  when 
a  controversy  or  service  he  was  engaged  in  was  fin- 

149 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

ished,  to  summarize  the  whole  affair  in  a  way  that 
strengthened  his  own  position  and  left  an  indelible 
impression  which  all  the  efforts  of  his  enemies  could 
not  efface.  Accordingly,  for  this  last  preface  he 
invented  a  homely,  catching  tale  that  enabled  him 
to  summarize  all  the  best  sayings  of  "Poor  Richard" 
for  the  last  twenty-five  years. 

"  I  stopt  ray  Horse  lately  where  a  great  Number  of  people  were 
collected  at  a  Vendue  of  Merchant  Goods.  The  Hour  of  Sale  not 
being  come,  they  were  conversing  on  the  Badness  of  the  Times,  and 
one  of  the  Company  call'd  to  a  plain  clean  old  Man,  with  white 
Locks,  '  Pray,  Father  Abraham,  what  think  you  of  the  Times  ? 
Won't  these  heavy  Taxes  quite  ruin  the  Country  ?  How  shall  we  be 
ever  able  to  pay  them  ?  What  would  you  advise  us  to  ?' — Father 
Abraham  stood  up,  and  reply'd,  *  If  you'd  have  my  Advice,  I'll  give 
it  you  in  short,  for  a  Word  to  the  Wise  is  enough,  and  many  Words 
won't  fill  a  Bushel,  as  Poor  Richard  says.'  They  join'd  in  desiring 
him  to  speak  his  Mind,  and  gathering  round  him,  he  proceeded  as 
follows  : 

"  *  Friends,'  says  he,  *  and  neighbours,  the  Taxes  are  indeed  very 
heavy,  and  if  those  laid  on  by  the  Government  were  the  only  Ones 
we  had  to  pay,  we  might  more  easily  discharge  them ;  but  we  have 
many  others,  and  much  more  grievous  to  some  of  us.  We  are  taxed 
twice  as  much  by  our  Idleness,  three  times  as  much  by  our  Pride,  and 
four  times  as  much  by  our  Folly,  and  from  these  Taxes  the  Commis 
sioners  cannot  ease  or  deliver  us  by  allowing  an  Abatement.  How 
ever  let  us  hearken  to  good  Advice,  and  something  may  be  done  for 
us ;  God  helps  them  that  help  themselves,  as  Poor  Richard  says  in 
his  Almanack  of  1733. 

"  '  It  would  be  thought  a  hard  Government  that  should  tax  its  Peo 
ple  one  tenth  Part  of  their  Time,  to  be  employed  in  its  Service.  But 
Idleness  taxes  many  of  us  much  more,  if  we  reckon  all  that  is  spent 
in  absolute  Sloth,  or  doing  of  nothing,  with  that  which  is  spent  in  idle 
Employments  or  Amusements,  that  amount  to  nothing.  Sloth,  by 
bringing  on  Diseases  absolutely  shortens  Life.  Sloth,  like  Rust,  con 
sumes  faster  than  Labour  weai-s,  while  the  used  Key  is  always  bright, 
as  Poor  Richard  says.  But  dost  thou  love  Life,  then  do  not  squander 
Time,  for  that's  the  Stuff  Life  is  made  of,  as  poor  Richard  says. — 
How  much  more  than  is  necessary  do  we  spend  in  Sleep !  forgetting 

150 


BUSINESS   AND   LITERATURE 

that  The  Sleeping  Fox  catches  no  Poultry,  and  that  there  will  be 
sleeping  enough  in  the  Grave,  as  Poor  Richard  says.  If  Time  be  of 
all  Things  the  most  precious,  wasting  of  Time  must  be,  as  Poor 
Richard  says,  the  greatest  Prodigality,  since,  as  he  elsewhere  tells  us, 
Lost  Time  is  never  found  again;  and  what  we  call  Time-enough, 
always  proves  little  enough.  Let  us  then  be  up  and  doing,  and 
doing  to  the  Purpose ;  so  by  Diligence  shall  we  do  more  with  less 
Perplexity.  Sloth  makes  all  Things  difficult,  but  Industry  all  Things 
easy,  as  Poor  Richard  says ;  and  He  that  riseth  late,  must  trot  all 
Day,  and  shall  scarce  overtake  his  Business  at  night.  While  Laziness 
travels  so  slowly,  that  Poverty  soon  overtakes  him,  as  we  read  in 
Poor  Richard,  who  adds,  Drive  thy  Business,  let  that  not  drive  thee; 
and  Early  to  Bed,  and  early  to  rise,  makes  a  Man  healthy,  wealthy, 
and  wise. 

"  *  So  much  for  Industry,  my  Friends,  and  Attention  to  one's  own 
Business ;  but  to  these  we  must  add  Frugality,  if  we  would  make  our 
Industry  more  certainly  successful.  A  man  may,  if  he  knows  not  how 
to  save  as  he  gets,  Keep  his  nose  all  his  life  to  the  Grindstone,  and 
die  not  worth  a  Groat  at  last. 

" '  And  now  to  conclude,  Experience  keeps  a  dear  School,  but 
Fools  will  learn  in  no  other,  and  scarce  in  that ;  for  it  is  true,  we  may 
give  Advice,  but  we  cannot  give  Conduct,  as  Poor  Richard  says : 
However,  remember  this,  They  that  won't  be  counselled,  can't  be 
helped,  as  Poor  Richard  says  :  and  farther,  That  if  you  will  not  hear 
Reason,  she'll  surely  wrap  your  Knuckles.' 

"Thus  the  old  Gentleman  ended  his  Harangue.  The  People 
heard  it,  and  approved  the  Doctrine,  and  immediately  practised  the 
contrary,  just  as  if  it  had  been  a  common  Sermon ;  for  the  Vendue 
opened  and  they  began  to  buy  extravagantly,  notwithstanding  all  his 
Cautions  and  their  own  Fear  of  Taxes." 


This  speech  of  the  wise  old  man  at  the  auction, 
while  perhaps  not  so  interesting  to  us  now  as  are 
some  other  parts  of  "  Poor  Richard1/'  was  a  great  hit 
in  its  day ;  in  fact,  the  greatest  Franklin  ever  made. 
Before  it  appeared  "  Poor  Richard's"  reputation  was 
confined  principally  to  America,  and  without  this 

151 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

final  speech  might  have  continued  within  those  limits. 
But  the  "clean  old  Man,  with  white  locks"  spread  the 
fame  of  "Poor  Dick"  over  the  whole  civilized  world. 
His  speech  was  reprinted  on  broadsides  in  England 
to  be  fastened  to  the  sides  of  houses,  translated  into 
French,  and  bought  by  the  clergy  and  gentry  for  dis 
tribution  to  parishioners  and  tenants.  Mr.  Paul 
Leicester  Ford,  in  his  excellent  little  volume,  "  The 
Sayings  of  Poor  Richard,"  has  summarized  its  success. 
Seventy  editions  of  it  have  been  printed  in  English, 
fifty-six  in  French,  eleven  in  German,  and  nine  in 
Italian.  It  has  also  been  translated  into  Spanish, 
Danish,  Swedish,  Welsh,  Polish,  Gaelic,  Russian,  Bo 
hemian,  Dutch,  Catalan,  Chinese,  and  Modern  Greek, 
reprinted  at  least  four  hundred  times,  and  still  lives. 

It  was  quite  common  a  hundred  years  ago  to 
charge  Franklin  with  being  an  arrant  plagiarist.  It 
is  true  that  the  sayings  of  "Poor  Richard"  and  a 
great  deal  that  went  to  make  up  the  almanac  were 
taken  from  Rabelais,  Bacon,  Rochefoucauld,  Ray 
Palmer,  and  any  other  sources  where  they  could  be 
found  or  suggested.  But  "  Poor  Richard"  changed 
and  rewrote  them  to  suit  his  purpose,  and  gave  most 
of  them  a  far  wider  circulation  than  they  had  before. 

More  serious  charges  have,  however,  been  made, 
and  they  are  summarized  in  Davis's  "Travels  in 
America,"  *  which  was  published  in  1803.  I  have 
already  noticed  one  of  these, — the  charge  that  his 
letter  on  air-baths  was  taken  from  Aubrey's  "Miscel 
lanies," — which,  on  examination,  I  cannot  find  to  be 

*  Pp.  209-217. 
152 


BUSINESS   AND   LITERATURE 

sustained.  Davis  also  charges  that  Franklin's  famous 
epitaph  on  himself  was  taken  from  a  Latin  one  by 
an  Eton  school-boy,  published  with  an  English  trans 
lation  in  the  Gentleman's  Magazine  for  February, 
1736.  Franklin's  epitaph  is  already  familiar  to  most 

of  us : 

The  Body 

of 
Benjamin  Franklin 

Printer 
(Like  the  cover  of  an  old  book 

Its  contents  torn  out 
And  stript  of  its  lettering  and  gilding) 

Lies  here,  food  for  worms. 

But  the  work  shall  not  be  lost 

For  it  will  (as  he  believed)  appear  once  more 

In  a  new  and  more  elegant  edition 

Revised  and  corrected 

by 
The  Author. 

The  Eton  boy's  was  somewhat  like  it : 

Vitae  Volumine  peracto 

Hie  Finis  Jacobi  Tonson 

Perpoliti  Sociorum  Principis; 

Qui  Velut  Obstetrix  Musarum 

In  Lucem  Edivit 

Foelices  Ingenii  Partus. 

Lugete,  Scriptorum  chorus, 

Et  Frangite  Calamos ; 

Ille  vester,  Margine  Erasus,  deletur ! 

Sed  haec  postrema  Inscriptio 

Huic  primae  Mortis  Paginae 

Imprimatur, 

Ne  Prselo  Sepulchri  Commissus, 

Ipse  Editor  careat  Titulo : 

Hie  Jacet  Bibliopola 

Folio  vitae  delapso 

Expectans  novam  Editionem 

Auctiorem  et  Emendatiorem. 

153 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN    FRANKLIN 

One  of  these  productions  might  certainly  have 
been  suggested  by  the  other.  But  Franklin's  grand 
son,  William  Temple  Franklin,  who  professed  to 
have  the  original  in  his  possession,  in  his  grandfather's 
handwriting,  said  that  it  was  dated  1728,  and  it  is 
printed  with  that  date  in  one  of  the  editions  of 
Franklin's  works.  If  this  date  is  correct,  it  would  be 
too  early  for  the  epitaph  to  have  been  copied  from 
the  one  in  the  Gentleman's  Magazine  for  February, 
1736.  It  might  be  said  that  possibly  the  Eton  boy 
knew  of  Franklin's  epitaph  ;  but  I  cannot  find  that 
it  was  printed  or  in  any  way  made  public  before 
1736.  There  is  no  reason  why  both  should  not  be 
original,  for  everybody  wrote  epitaphs  in  that  century. 

Franklin  has  been  credited  by  one  of  his  biog 
raphers  with  the  invention  of  the  comic  epitaph, 
and  Smollett's  famous  inscription  on  Commodore 
Trunnion's  tomb  in  "  Peregrine  Pickle"  is  described 
as  a  mere  imitation  of  Franklin's  epitaph  on  him 
self.  But  there  is  no  evidence  that  Smollett  had  seen 
Franklin's  production  before  "  Peregrine  Pickle"  was 
published  in  1750,  and  it  was  not  necessary  that  he 
should.  There  were  plenty  of  similar  productions 
long  before  that  time.  Franklin's  own  Gazette,  Jan 
uary  6  to  January  15,  1735/6,  gives  a  very  witty  in 
scription  on  a  dead  greyhound,  which  is  described 
as  cut  on  the  walls  of  Lord  Cobham's  gardens  at 
Stow.  In  writing  comic  epitaphs  Franklin  was  merely 
following  the  fashion  of  his  time,  and  he  was  hardly 
as  good  at  it  as  Smollett. 

He  has  himself  told  us  the  source  of  one  of  his 
best  short  essays,  "The  Ephemera,"  a  beautiful  little 


BUSINESS   AND   LITERATURE 

allegory  which  he  wrote  to  please  Madame  Brillon  in 
Paris.  In  a  letter  to  William  Carmichael,  of  June 
1 7,  1 780,  he  describes  the  circumstances  under  which 
it  was  written,  and  says  that  "  the  thought  was  partly 
taken  from  a  little  piece  of  some  unknown  writer, 
which  I  met  with  fifty  years  since  in  a  newspaper."  : 
It  was  in  this  way  that  he  worked  over  old  material 
for  "  Poor  Richard."  Everything  he  had  read  seemed 
capable  of  supplying  suggestions,  and  it  must  be  said 
that  he  usually  improved  on  the  work  of  other  men. 

He  was  very  fond  of  paraphrasing  the  Bible  as  a 
humorous  task  and  also  to  show  what  he  conceived 
to  be  the  meaning  of  certain  passages.  He  altered 
the  wording  of  the  Book  of  Job  so  as  to  make  it  a 
satire  on  English  politics.  He  did  it  cleverly,  and  it 
was  amusing  ;  but  it  was  a  very  cheap  sort  of  humor. 

His  most  famous  joke  of  this  kind  was  his  "  Parable 
against  Persecution."  He  had  learned  it  by  heart, 
and  when  he  was  in  England,  and  the  discussion 
turned  on  religious  liberty,  he  would  open  the  Bible 
and  read  his  parable  as  the  last  chapter  in  Gene 
sis.  The  imitation  of  the  language  of  Scripture 
was  perfect,  and  the  parable  itself  was  so  interest 
ing  and  striking  that  every  one  was  delighted  with 
it.  His  guests  would  wonder  and  say  that  they  had 
never  known  there  was  such  a  chapter  in  Genesis. 

The  parable  was  published  and  universally  ad 
mired,  but  when  it  appeared  in  the  Gentleman's 
Magazine  some  one  very  quickly  discovered  that  it 
had  been  taken  from  Jeremy  Taylor's  Polemical  Dis- 

*  Bigelow's  Franklin  from  His  Own  Writings,  vol.  ii.  p.  511. 
'55 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

courses,  and  there  was  a  great  discussion  over  it. 
Franklin  afterwards  said,  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Vaughan, 
that  he  had  taken  it  from  Taylor  ;  and  John  Adams 
said  that  he  never  pretended  that  it  was  original* 
It  is  interesting  to  see  how  cleverly  he  improved  on 
Taylor's  language  : 


TAYLOR. 

"When  Abraham  sat  at  his 
tent  door  according  to  his  cus 
tom,  waiting  to  entertain  stran 
gers,  he  espied  an  old  man  stoop 
ing  and  leaning  on  his  staff; 
weary  with  age  and  travel,  com 
ing  towards  him,  who  was  an 
hundred  years  old.  He  received 
him  kindly,  washed  his  feet,  pro 
vided  supper,  and  caused  him  to 
sit  down ;  but  observing  that  the 
old  man  ate  and  prayed  not,  nor 
begged  for  a  blessing  on  his  meat, 
he  asked  him  why  he  did  not 
worship  the  God  of  heaven? 
The  old  man  told  him,  that  he 
worshipped  the  fire  only  and  ac 
knowledged  no  other  god.  At 
which  answer  Abraham  grew  so 
zealously  angry,  that  he  thrust 
the  old  man  out  of  his  tent,  and 
exposed  him  to  all  the  evils  of 
the  night  and  an  unguarded  con 
dition.  When  the  old  man  was 
gone,  God  called  to  Abraham, 
and  asked  him  where  the  stran 
ger  was?  He  replied,  I  thrust 
him  away,  because  he  did  not 
worship  thee.  God  answered 


FRANKLIN. 

"  f x  And  it  came  to  pass  after 
these  things,  that  Abraham  sat 
in  the  door  of  his  tent,  about  the 
going  down  of  the  sun.  ^  2  And 
behold  a  man,  bent  with  age, 
coming  from  the  way  of  the 
wilderness  leaning  on  his  staff. 
^[  3  And  Abraham  rose  and  met 
him,  and  said  unto  him  :  Turn  in, 
I  pray  thee,  and  wash  thy  feet, 
and  tarry  all  night ;  and  thou 
shall  arise  early  in  the  morn 
ing  and  go  on  thy  way.  1[  *  But 
the  man  said,  Nay,  for  I  will 
abide  under  this  tree.  ^[  s  And 
Abraham  pressed  him  greatly: 
so  he  turned  and  they  went  into 
the  tent,  and  Abraham  baked 
unleavened  bread,  and  they  did 
eat.  ][ 6  And  when  Abraham  saw 
that  the  man  blessed  not  God  he 
said  unto  him,  wherefore  dost 
thou  not  worship  the  Most  High 
God,  Creator  of  heaven  and 
earth  ?  fl  7  And  the  man  answered, 
and  said,  I  do  not  worship  thy 
God,  neither  do  I  call  upon  his 
name;  for  I  have  made  to  my 
self  a  god,  which  abideth  in  my 


*  Bigelow's  Works  of  Franklin,  vol.  v.  p.  376;  also  vol.  x.  p.  78; 
Adams's  Works,  vol.  i.  p.  659. 

156 


BUSINESS   AND   LITERATURE 


him,  I  have  suffered  him  these 
hundred  years,  although  he  dis 
honoured  me;  and  couldst  not 
thou  endure  him  one  night,  and 
when  he  gave  thee  no  trouble  ? 
Upon  this,  saith  the  story,  Abra 
ham  fetched  him  back  again,  and 
gave  him  hospitable  entertain 
ment  and  wise  instruction.  Go 
thou  and  do  likewise  and  thy 
charity  will  be  rewarded  by  the 
God  of  Abraham." 


house  and  provideth  me  with  all 
things,  fl  8  And  Abraham's  zeal 
was  kindled  against  the  man ; 
and  he  arose  and  fell  upon  him, 
and  drove  him  forth  with  blows 
into  the  wilderness.  ^[9  And  at 
midnight  God  called  unto  Abra 
ham  saying,  Abraham,  where  is 
the  stranger  ?  ^[ I0  And  Abraham 
answered  and  said,  Lord,  he 
would  not  worship  thee,  neither 
would  he  call  upon  thy  name ; 
therefore  have  I  driven  him  out 
from  before  my  face  into  the  wil 
derness.  ^[  "  And  God  said,  have 
I  borne  with  him  these  hundred 
and  ninety  and  eight  years,  and 
nourished  him,  and  Cloathed  him, 
notwithstanding  his  rebellion 
against  me;  and  couldest  not 
thou,  who  art  thyself  a  sin 
ner,  bear  with  him  one  night  ? 
Tf "  And  Abraham  said,  Let  not 
the  anger  of  the  Lord  wax  hot 
against  his  servant;  lo,  I  have 
sinned ;  forgive  me  I  pray  thee. 
fl  T3  And  Abraham  arose  and  went 
forth  into  the  wilderness  and 
sought  diligently  for  the  man  and 
found  him,  and  returned  with 
him  to  the  tent;  and  when  he 
had  entreated  him  kindly,  he 
sent  him  away  on  the  morrow 
with  gifts.  ^[^And  God  spake 
unto  Abraham,  saying,  For  this 
thy  sin  shall  thy  seed  be  afflicted 
four  hundred  years  in  a  strange 
land.  ^  *5  But  for  thy  repentance 
will  I  deliver  them  ;  and  they 
shall  come  forth  with  power  and 
gladness  of  heart,  and  with  much 
substance." 


157 


THE  TRUE  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

The  parable  was,  indeed,  older  than  Taylor  for 
Taylor  said  he  had  found  it  in  "  The  Jews'  Book," 
and  at  length  it  was  discovered  in  a  Latin  dedication 
of  a  rabbinical  work,  called  "The  Rod  of  Judah," 
published  at  Amsterdam  in  1651,  which  ascribed  the 
parable  to  the  Persian  poet  Saadi.  None  of  them, 
however,  had  thought  of  introducing  it  into  the  Old 
Testament,  nor  had  they  told  it  so  well  as  Franklin, 
who  gave  it  a  new  currency,  and  it  was  reprinted  as  a 
half-penny  tract  and  also  in  Lord  Kames's  ' '  Sketches 
of  the  History  of  Man." 

While  on  this  question  of  plagiarism  it  may  be  said 
that  Franklin's  admirable  style  was  in  part  modelled 
on  that  of  the  famous  Massachusetts  divine,  Cotton 
Mather,  whom  he  had  known  and  whose  books  he 
had  read  in  his  boyhood.  The  similarity  is,  indeed, 
quite  striking,  and  for  vigorous  English  he  could 
hardly  have  had  a  better  model.  But  he  improved 
so  much  on  Mather  that  his  style  is  entirely  his  own. 
It  is  the  most  effective  literary  style  ever  used  by  an 
American.  Nearly  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  have 
passed  since  his  Autobiography  was  written,  yet  it 
is  still  read  with  delight  by  all  classes  of  people,  has 
been  called  for  at  some  public  libraries  four  hundred 
times  a  year,  and  shows  as  much  promise  of  immor 
tality  as  the  poems  of  Longfellow  or  the  romances 
of  Hawthorne. 

Besides  his  almanac  and  newspaper,  Franklin  ex 
tended  his  business  by  publishing  books,  consisting 
mostly  of  religious  tracts  and  controversies.  He  also 
imported  books  from  England,  and  sold  them  along 
with  the  lamp-black,  soap,  and  groceries  contained  in 

158 


BUSINESS   AND   LITERATURE 

that  strange  little  store  and  printing-office  on  Market 
Street.  He  sent  one  of  his  journeymen  to  Charles 
ton  to  establish  a  branch  printing-office,  of  which 
Franklin  was  to  pay  one-third  of  the  expense  and 
receive  one-third  of  the  profits.  After  continuing 
in  this  manner  some  five  years,  the  Legislature  of 
the  province  in  1736  elected  him  clerk  of  that  body, 
which  enabled  him  to  retain  the  printing  of  the 
notes,  laws,  paper  money,  and  other  public  jobs, 
which  he  tells  us  were  very  profitable. 

The  next  year  Colonel  Spotswood,  Postmaster- 
General  of  the  colonies,  made  him  deputy  post 
master  of  Philadelphia.  This  appointment  reinforced 
his  other  occupations.  He  could  collect  news  for 
his  Gazette  more  easily,  and  also  had  greater  facili 
ties  for  distributing  it  to  his  subscribers.  In  those 
days  the  postmaster  of  a  town  usually  owned  a 
newspaper,  because  he  could  have  the  post-riders 
distribute  copies  of  it  without  cost,  and  he  did  not 
allow  them  to  carry  any  newspaper  but  his  own. 
Franklin  had  been  injured  by  the  refusal  of  his  pre 
decessor  to  distribute  his  Gazette ;  but  when  he 
became  postmaster,  finding  his  subscriptions  and 
advertisements  much  increased  and  his  competitor's 
newspaper  declining,  he  magnanimously  refused  to 
retaliate,  and  allowed  his  riders  to  carry  the  rival 
journal. 

How  much  money  Franklin  actually  made  in  his 
business  is  difficult  to  determine,  although  many 
guesses  have  been  made.  He  was,  it  would  seem, 
more  largely  and  widely  engaged  than  any  other 
printer  in  the  colonies,  for  nearly  all  the  important 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

printing  of  the  middle  colonies  and  a  large  part  of 
that  of  the  southern  colonies  came  to  his  office. 
He  made  enough  to  retire  at  forty-two  years  of  age, 
having  been  working  for  himself  only  twenty  years. 

On  retiring  he  turned  over  his  printing  and  pub 
lishing  interest  to  his  foreman,  David  Hall,  who  was 
to  carry  on  the  business  in  his  own  way,  but  under 
the  firm  name  of  Franklin  &  Hall,  and  to  pay 
Franklin  a  thousand  pounds  a  year  for  eighteen 
years,  at  the  end  of  which  time  Hall  was  to  become 
sole  proprietor.  This  thousand  pounds  which  Frank 
lin  was  to  receive  may  be  looked  upon  as  an  indica 
tion  that  before  his  retirement  the  business  was 
yielding  him  annually  something  more  than  that 
sum,  possibly  almost  two  thousand  pounds,  as  some 
have  supposed. 

He  never  again  engaged  actively  in  any  gainful 
trade,  and  his  retirement  seems  to  have  been  caused 
by  the  passion  for  scientific  research  which  a  few 
years  before  had  seized  him,  and  by  that  trait  of 
his  character  which  sometimes  appears  in  the  form 
of  a  sort  of  indolence  and  at  other  times  as  a  wilful 
determination  to  follow  the  bent  of  his  inclinations 
and  pleasures.  Although  extremely  economical  and 
thrifty  in  practice  as  well  as  in  precept,  he  had  very 
little  love  of  money,  and  took  no  pleasure  in  busi 
ness  for  mere  business'  sake.  The  charges  of  sordid- 
ness  and  mean  penny-wisdom  are  not  borne  out  by 
any  of  the  real  facts  of  his  life.  It  is  not  improbable 
that  just  before  his  retirement  he  had  advanced  far 
enough  in  his  scientific  experiments  to  see  dimly  in 
the  future  the  chance  of  a  great  discovery  and  dis- 

160 


BUSINESS  AND   LITERATURE 

tinction.  He  certainly  went  to  work  with  a  will  as 
soon  ^as  he  got  rid  of  the  cares  of  the  printing-office, 
and  in  a  few  years  was  rewarded. 

He  had  invested  some  of  his  savings  in  houses 
and  land  in  Philadelphia,  and  the  thousand  pounds 
(five  thousand  dollars)  which  he  was  to  receive  for 
eighteen  years  was  a  very  good  income  in  those 
times,  and  more  than  equivalent  to  ten  thousand 
dollars  at  the  present  day.  He  moved  from  the 
bustle  of  Market  Street  and  his  home  in  the  old 
printing,  stationery,  and  grocery  house,  and  is  sup 
posed  to  have  taken  a  house  at  the  southeast  corner 
of  Second  and  Race  Streets.  This  was  at  the 
northern  edge  of  the  town,  close  to  the  river,  where 
in  the  summer  evenings  he  renewed  his  youthful 
fondness  for  swimming. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  very  few  self-made  men, 
conducting  a  profitable  business  with  the  prospect  of 
steady  accumulation  of  money,  have  willingly  resigned 
it  in  the  prime  of  life,  under  the  influence  of  such 
sentiments  as  appear  to  have  moved  him.  But  that 
intense  and  absolute  devotion  to  business  which  is 
the  prevailing  mood  of  our  times  had  not  then 
begun  in  America,  and  it  was  rather  the  fashion  to 
retire. 

The  years  which  followed  his  retirement,  and  before 
he  became  absorbed  in  political  affairs,  seem  to  have 
had  for  him  a  great  deal  of  ideal  happiness.  He 
lived  like  a  man  of  taste  and  a  scholar  accustomed  to 
cultured  surroundings  more  than  like  a  self-made 
man  who  had  battled  for  forty  years  with  the  material 
world.  In  writing  to  his  mother,  he  said, — 
it  161 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

"  I  read  a  great  deal,  ride  a  little,  do  a  little  business  for  myself, 
now  and  then  for  others,  retire  when  I  can,  and  go  into  company 
when  I  please ;  so  the  years  roll  round,  and  the  last  will  come,  when 
I  would  rather  have  it  said,  He  lived  usefully  than  He  died  rich." 

After  his  withdrawal  from  business  he  remained 
postmaster  of  Philadelphia,  and  in  1753,  after  he  had 
held  that  office  for  sixteen  years,  he  was  appointed 
Postmaster-General  of  all  the  colonies,  with  Wil 
liam  Hunter,  of  Virginia,  as  his  colleague,  and  he 
retained  this  position  until  dismissed  from  it  by  the 
British  government  in  1 774,  on  the  eve  of  the  Revo 
lution.  There  was  some  salary  attached  to  these 
offices,  that  of  Postmaster-General  yielding  three 
hundred  pounds.  The  postmastership  of  Philadel 
phia  entailed  no  difficult  duties  at  that  time,  and 
his  wife  assisted  him  ;  but  when  he  was  made  Post 
master-General  he  more  than  earned  his  salary 
during  the  first  few  years  by  making  extensive 
journeys  through  the  colonies  to  reform  the  sys 
tem.  The  salary  attached  to  the  office  was  not  to 
be  allowed  unless  the  office  produced  it ;  and  during 
the  first  four  years  the  unpaid  salary  of  Franklin  and 
his  colleague  amounted  to  nine  hundred  and  fifty 
pounds.  He  procured  faster  post-riders,  increased 
the  number  of  mails  between  important  places,  made 
a  charge  for  carrying  newspapers,  had  all  newspapers 
carried  by  the  riders,  and  reduced  some  of  the  rates 
of  postage. 

But  he  was  not  the  founder  of  the  modern  post- 
office  system,  nor  was  he  the  first  Postmaster-General 
of  America,  as  some  of  his  biographers  insist.  He 
merely  improved  the  system  which  he  found  and  in- 

162 


BUSINESS   AND   LITERATURE 

creased  its  revenues  as  others  have  done  before  and 
since. 

The  leisure  he  sought  by  retirement  was  enjoyed 
but  a  few  years.  He  became  more  and  more  in 
volved  in  public  affairs,  and  soon  spent  most  of  his 
time  in  England  as  agent  of  Pennsylvania  or  other 
colonies,  and  during  the  Revolution  he  was  in 
France.  There  was  a  salary  attached  to  these  offices. 
As  agent  of  Pennsylvania  he  received  five  hundred 
pounds  a  year,  and  when  he  represented  other  colo 
nies  he  received  from  Massachusetts  four  hundred, 
from  Georgia  two  hundred,  and  from  New  Jersey 
one  hundred.  These  sums,  together  with  the  thou 
sand  pounds  a  year  from  Hall,  would  seem  to  be 
enough  for  a  man  of  his  habits ;  but  apparently 
he  used  it  all,  and  was  often  slow  in  paying  his 
debts. 

In  a  letter  written  to  Mrs.  Stevenson  in  London, 
while  he  was  envoy  to  France,  he  expresses  surprise 
that  some  of  the  London  tradespeople  still  consid 
ered  him  their  debtor  for  things  obtained  from  them 
during  his  residence  there  some  years  before,  and 
he  asks  Mrs.  Stevenson,  with  whom  he  had  lodged, 
how  his  account  stands  with  her.  The  thousand 
pounds  from  Hall  ceased  in  1766,  and  after  that  his 
income  must  have  been  seriously  diminished,  for  the 
return  from  his  invested  savings  is  supposed  to  have 
been  only  about  seven  hundred  pounds.  He  ap 
pears  to  have  overdrawn  his  account  with  Hall,  for 
there  is  a  manuscript  letter  in  the  possession  of  Mr. 
Howard  Edwards,  of  Philadelphia,  written  by  Hall 
March  i,  1770,  urging  Franklin  to  pay  nine  hun- 

163 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

dred  and  ninety-three  pounds  which  had  been  due 
for  three  years. 

He  procured  for  his  natural  son,  William,  the  royal 
governorship  of  New  Jersey,  and  he  was  diligent  all 
his  life  in  getting  government  places  for  relatives. 
This  practice  does  not  appear  to  have  been  much 
disapproved  of  in  his  time  ;  he  was  not  subjected 
to  abuse  on  account  of  it ;  and,  indeed,  nepotism  is 
far  preferable  to  some  of  the  more  modern  methods. 

When  Governor  of  Pennsylvania,  after  the  Revolu 
tion,  he  declined,  we  are  told,  to  receive  any  salary 
for  his  three  years'  service,  accepting  only  his  ex 
penses  for  postage,  which  was  high  in  those  times, 
and  amounted  in  this  case  to  seventy-seven  pounds 
for  the  three  years.  This  is  one  of  the  innumerable 
statements  about  him  in  which  the  truth  is  distorted 
for  the  sake  of  eulogy.  He  did  not  decline  to  re 
ceive  his  salary,  but  he  spent  it  in  charity,  and  we 
find  bequests  of  it  in  his  will. 

As  minister  to  France  he  had  at  first  five  hun 
dred  pounds  a  year  and  his  expenses,  and  this  was 
paid.  He  was  also  promised  a  secretary  at  a  salary 
of  one  thousand  pounds-  a  year  ;  but,  as  the  secre 
tary  was  never  sent,  he  did  the  work  himself  with 
the  assistance  of  his  grandson,  William  Temple 
Franklin,  who  was  allowed  only  three  hundred 
pounds  a  year. 

He  considered  himself  very  much  underpaid  for 
his  services  in  resisting  the  Stamp  Act,  for  his  mission 
to  Canada  in  1776  at  the  risk  of  his  life,  and  for  the 
long  and  laborious  years  which  he  spent  in  France. 
Certainly  five  hundred  pounds  a  year  and  expenses 

164 


BUSINESS  AND   LITERATURE 

was  very  small  pay  for  his  diplomatic  work  in  Paris, 
but  during  the  last  six  years  of  his  mission  there  he 
received  two  thousand  five  hundred  pounds  a  year, 
which, would  seem  to  be  sufficient  compensation  for 
acting  as  ambassador,  as  well  as  merchant  to  buy 
and  ship  supplies  to  the  United  States,  and  as  finan 
cial  agent  to  examine  and  accept  innumerable  bills 
of  exchange  drawn  by  the  Continental  Congress 
(Bigelow's  Works  of  Franklin,  vol.  ix.  p.  127).  In 
1788,  two  years  before  his  death,  he  made  a  state 
ment  of  these  claims  for  extra  service  and  sent  it  to 
Congress,  accompanied  by  a  letter  to  his  friend, 
Charles  Thomson,  the  secretary. 

He  thought  that  Congress  should  recognize  these 
services  by  a  grant  of  land,  an  office,  or  in  some 
other  way,  as  was  the  custom  in  Europe  when  an 
ambassador  returned  from  a  long  foreign  service ; 
and  he  reminded  Thomson  that  both  Arthur  Lee  and 
John  Jay  had  been  rewarded  handsomely  for  similar 
services.  But  the  old  Congress  under  the  Articles 
of  Confederation  was  then  just  expiring,  and  took  no 
notice  of  his  petition  ;  and  when  the  new  Congress 
came  in  under  the  Constitution,  it  does  not  appear 
that  his  claims  were  presented.  It  is  a  mistake  to 
say,  however,  as  some  have  done,  that  the  United 
States  never  paid  him  for  his  services  and  still  owes 
him  money.  These  claims  were  for  extra  services 
which  the  government  had  never  obligated  itself  to 
pay. 

He  died  quite  well  off  for  those  times,  leaving  an 
estate  worth,  it  is  supposed,  considerably  over  one 
hundred  thousand  dollars.  The  rapid  rise  in  the 

105 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

value  of  houses  and  land  in  Philadelphia  after  the 
Revolution  accounts  for  a  part  of  this  sum.  He 
owned  five  or  six  large  houses  in  Philadelphia,  the 
printing-house  which  he  built  for  his  grandson,  and 
several  small  houses.  He  had  also  a  number  of  va 
cant  lots  in  the  town,  a  house  and  lot  in  Boston,  a 
tract  of  land  in  Nova  Scotia,  another  large  tract  in 
Georgia,  and  still  another  in  Ohio.  His  personal 
property,  consisting  mostly  of  bonds  and  money, 
was  worth  from  sixty  to  seventy  thousand  dollars. 


166 


SCIENCE 

THE  exact  period  at  which  Franklin  began  to  turn 
his  attention  to  original  researches  in  science  is  diffi 
cult  to  determine.  There  are  no  traces  of  such 
efforts  when  he  was  a  youth  in  Boston.  He  was  not 
then  interested  in  science,  even  in  a  boyish  way. 
His  instincts  at  that  time  led  him  almost  exclusively 
in  the  direction  of  general  reading  and  the  training 
of  himself  in  the  literary  art  by  verse-writing  and  by 
analyzing  the  essays  of  the  Spectator. 

The  atmosphere  of  Boston  was  completely  theo 
logical.  There  was  no  room,  no  opportunity,  for 
science,  and  no  inducement  or  even  suggestion  that 
would  lead  to  it,  still  less  to  original  research  in  it. 
We  find  Franklin  in  a  state  of  rebellion  against  the 
prevailing  tone  of  thought,  writing  against  it  in  his 
brother's  newspaper  at  the  risk  of  imprisonment,  and 
in  a  manner  more  bitter  and  violent  than  anything 
he  afterwards  composed.  If  he  had  remained  in 
Boston  it  is  not  likely  that  he  would  ever  have  taken 
seriously  to  science,  for  all  his  energies  would  have 
been  absorbed  in  fighting  those  intolerant  conditions 
which  smothered  all  scientific  inquiries. 

In  Pennsylvania  he  found  the  conditions  reversed. 
The  Quakers  and  the  German  sects  which  made  up 
the  majority  of  the  people  of  that  province  in  colo- 

167 


THE   TRUE  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

nial  times  had  more  advanced  ideas  of  liberty  and 
free  thought  than  any  of  the  other  religious  bodies 
in  America,  and  in  consequence  science  flourished 
in  Pennsylvania  long  before  it  gained  entrance  into 
the  other  colonies.  The  first  American  medical  col 
lege,  the  first  hospital,  and  the  first  separate  dis 
pensary  were  established  there.  Several  citizens  of 
Philadelphia  who  were  contemporaries  of  Franklin 
achieved  sufficient  reputation  in  science  to  make 
their  names  well  known  in  Europe. 

David  Rittenhouse  invented  the  metallic  ther 
mometer,  developed  the  construction  of  the  compen 
sation  pendulum,  and  made  valuable  experiments 
on  the  compressibility  of  water.  He  became  a 
famous  astronomer,  constructed  an  orrery  to  show 
the  movements  of  the  stars  which  was  an  improve 
ment  on  all  its  predecessors,  and  conducted  the 
observations  of  the  transit  of  Venus  in  1769. 
Pennsylvania  was  the  only  one  of  the  colonies  that 
took  these  observations,  which  in  that  year  were 
taken  by  all  the  European  governments  in  various 
parts  of  the  world.  The  Legislature  and  public 
institutions,  together  with  a  large  number  of  in 
dividuals,  assisted  in  the  undertaking,  showing  what 
very  favorable  conditions  for  science  prevailed  in 
the  province.* 

These  were  the  conditions  which  seem  to  have 
aroused  Franklin.  Without  them  his  mind  tended 
more  naturally  to  literature,  politics,  and  schemes 
of  philanthropy  and  reform  ;  but  when  his  strong 


Making  of  Pennsylvania,  chap.  ix. 
1 68 


SCIENCE 

intellect  was  once  directed  towards  science,  he  easily 
excelled  in  it.  Some  of  the  early  questions  dis 
cussed  by  the  Junto,  such  as  "Is  sound  an  entity  or 
body?"  and  "How  may  the  phenomena  of  vapors 
be  explained?"  show  an  inclination  towards  scien 
tific  research ;  and  it  is  very  likely  that  he  studied 
such  subjects  more  or  less  during  the  ten  years 
which  followed  his  beginning  business  for  himself. 

In  his  Gazette  for  December  15,  1737,  there  is  an 
essay  on  the  causes  of  earthquakes,  summarizing 
the  various  explanations  which  had  been  given  by 
learned  men,  and  this  essay  is  supposed  to  have 
been  written  by  him.  Six  years  afterwards  he  made 
what  has  been  usually  considered  his  first  discovery, 
— namely,  that  the  northeast  storms  of  the  Atlantic 
coast  move  against  the  wind ;  or,  in  other  words, 
that  instead  of  these  storms  coming  from  the  north 
east,  whence  the  wind  blows,  they  come  from  the 
southwest.  He  was  led  to  this  discovery  by  at 
tempting  to  observe  an  eclipse  of  the  moon  which 
occurred  on  the  evening  of  October  21,  1743  ;  but 
he  was  prevented  by  a  heavy  northeaster  which  did 
great  damage  on  the  coast.  He  was  surprised  to 
find  that  it  had  not  prevented  the  people  of  Boston 
from  seeing  the  eclipse.  The  storm,  though  coming 
from  the  northeast,  swept  over  Philadelphia  before 
it  reached  Boston.  For  several  years  he  carefully 
collected  information  about  these  storms,  and  found 
in  every  instance  that  they  began  to  leeward  and 
were  often  more  violent  there  than  farther  to  wind 
ward. 

He  seems  to  have  been  the  first  person  to  observe 
169 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

these  facts,  but  he  took  no  pains  to  make  his  ob 
servations  public,  except  in  conversation  or  in  letters 
to  prominent  men  like  Jared  Eliot,  of  Connecticut, 
and  these  letters  were  not  published  until  long  after 
wards.  This  was  his  method  in  all  his  investigations. 
He  never  wrote  a  book  on  science ;  he  merely  re 
ported  his  investigations  and  experiments  by  letter, 
usually  to  learned  people  in  England  or  France. 
There  were  no  scientific  periodicals  in  those  days. 
The  men  who  were  interested  in  such  things  kept  in 
touch  with  one  another  by  means  of  correspondence 
and  an  occasional  pamphlet  or  book. 

During  the  same  period  in  which  he  was  making 
observations  on  northeast  storms  he  invented  the 
"  Pennsylvania  Fireplace,"  as  he  called  it,  a  new 
sort  of  stove  which  was  a  great  improvement  over 
the  old  methods  of  heating  rooms.  He  published 
a  complete  description  of  this  stove  in  1745,  and  it 
is  one  of  the  most  interesting  essays  he  ever  wrote. 
It  is  astonishing  with  what  pleasure  one  can  still  read 
the  first  half  of  this  essay  written  one  hundred  and 
fifty  years  ago  on  the  driest  of  dry  subjects.  The 
language  is  so  clear  and  beautiful,  and  the  homely 
personality  of  the  writer  so  manifest,  that  one  is 
inclined  to  lay  down  the  principle  that  the  test  of 
literary  genius  is  the  ability  to  be  fascinating  about 
stoves. 

He  explained  the  laws  of  hot  air  and  its  move 
ments  ;  the  Holland  stove,  which  afforded  but  little 
ventilation  ;  the  German  stove,  which  was  simply  an 
iron  box  fed  from  outside,  with  no  ventilating  proper 
ties  ;  and  the  great  open  fireplace  fed  with  huge  logs, 

170 


SCIENCE 

which  required  such  a  draft  to  prevent  the  smoke 
from  coming  back  into  the  room  that  the  outer  door 
had  to  be  left  open, — and  if  the  door  was  shut  the 
draft  would  draw  the  outer  air  whistling  and  howling 
through  the  crevices  of  the  windows.  His  "  Penn 
sylvania  Fireplace"  was  what  we  would  now  call  an 
open-fireplace  stove.  It  was  intended  to  be  less 
wasteful  of  fuel  than  the  ordinary  fireplace  and  to 
give  ventilation,  while  combining  the  heating  power 
of  the  German  and  Holland  stoves.  It  continued 
in  common  use  for  nearly  a  century,  and  modified 
forms  of  it  are  still  occasionally  seen. 

One  of  its  greatest  advantages  was  that  it  saved 
wood,  which,  for  some  time  prior  to  the  introduction 
of  coal,  had  to  be  brought  such  a  long  distance 
that  it  was  becoming  very  expensive.  Franklin 
refused  to  take  out  a  patent  for  his  invention ;  for 
he  was  on  principle  opposed  to  patents,  and  said  that 
as  we  enjoyed  great  advantages  from  the  inventions 
of  others,  we  should  be  willing  to  serve  them  by  in 
ventions  of  our  own.  He  afterwards  learned  that 
a  London  ironmonger  made  a  few  changes  in  the 
"Pennsylvania  Fireplace"  and  sold  it  as  his  own, 
gaining  a  small  fortune. 

Franklin's  invention  was  undoubtedly  an  improve 
ment  on  the  old  methods  of  heating  and  ventilation  ; 
but  he  was  not,  as  has  been  absurdly  claimed,  the 
founder  of  the  "  American  stove  system,"  for  that 
system  very  soon  departed  from  his  lines  and  went 
back  to  the  air-tight  stoves  of  Germany  and  Holland. 

It  was  not  until  1 746  or  1 747,  after  he  had  been 
making  original  researches  in  science  for  about  five 

171 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

years,  that  he  took  up  the  subject  of  electricity,  and 
he  was  then  forty-one  years  old.  It  appears  that  Mr. 
Peter  Collinson,  of  London,  who  was  interested  in 
botany  and  other  sciences,  and  corresponded  largely 
on  such  subjects,  had  presented  to  the  Philadelphia 
Library  one  of  the  glass  tubes  which  were  used  at 
that  time  for  producing  electricity  by  rubbing  them 
with  silk  or  skin.  Franklin  began  experimenting 
with  this  tube,  and  seems  to  have  been  fascinated  by 
the  new  subject.  On  March  28,  1747,  he  wrote  to 
Mr.  Collinson  thanking  him  for  the  tube,  and  saying 
that  they  had  observed  with  its  aid  some  phenomena 
which  they  thought  to  be  new. 

"  For  my  own  part,  I  never  was  before  engaged  in  any  study  that 
so  totally  engrossed  my  attention  and  my  time  as  this  has  lately  done ; 
for  what  with  making  experiments  when  I  can  be  alone,  and  repeat 
ing  them  to  my  friends  and  acquaintance,  who  from  the  novelty  of 
the  thing,  come  continually  in  crowds  to  see  them,  I  have,  during 
some  months  past,  had  little  leisure  for  anything  else." 

It  will  be  observed  that  he  speaks  of  crowds  coming 
to  see  the  experiments,  and  this  confirms  what  I  have 
already  shown  of  the  strong  interest  in  science  which 
prevailed  at  that  time  in  Pennsylvania,  and  which  had 
evidently  first  aroused  Franklin.  In  fact,  a  renewed 
interest  in  science  had  been  recently  stirred  up  all 
over  the  world,  and  people  who  had  never  before 
thought  much  of  such  things  became  investigators. 
Voltaire,  who  resembled  Franklin  in  many  ways,  had 
turned  aside  from  literature,  and  at  forty-one,  the 
same  age  at  which  Franklin  began  the  study  of  elec 
tricity,  had  become  a  man  of  science,  and  for  four 
years  devoted  himself  to  experiments. 

172 


SCIENCE 

Franklin  was  by  no  means  alone  in  his  studies. 
Besides  the  crowds  who  were  interested  from  mere 
curiosity,  there  were  three  men — Ebenezer  Kinners- 
ley,  Thomas  Hopkinson,  and  Philip  Syng — who  ex 
perimented  with  him,  and  it  was  no  mere  amateurish 
work  in  which  these  men  were  engaged.  Franklin 
was  their  spokesman  and  reported  the  results  of  his 
and  their  labor  by  means  of  letters  to  Mr.  Peter  Col- 
linson.  Within  six  months  Hopkinson  had  observed 
the  power  of  points  to  throw  off  electricity,  or  elec 
trical  fire,  as  he  called  it,  and  Franklin  had  discovered 
and  described  what  is  now  known  as  positive  and 
negative  electricity.  Within  the  same  time  Syng 
had  invented  an  electrical  machine,  consisting  of  a 
sphere  revolved  on  an  axis  with  a  handle,  which  was 
better  adapted  for  producing  the  electrical  spark  than 
the  tube-rubbing  practised  in  Europe. 

The  experiments  and  the  letters  to  Collinson  de 
scribing  them  continued,  and  about  this  time  we  find 
Franklin  writing  a  long  and  apparently  the  first  intel 
ligent  explanation  of  the  action  of  the  Leyden  jar. 
Then  followed  attempts  to  explain  thunder  and  light 
ning  as  phenomena  of  electricity,  and  on  July  29, 
1750,  Franklin  sent  to  Collinson  a  paper  announcing 
the  invention  of  the  lightning-rod,  together  with  an 
explanation  of  its  action. 

In  these  papers  he  also  suggested  an  experiment 
which  would  prove  positively  that  lightning  was  a 
form  of  electricity.  The  two  phenomena  were  alike 
as  regarded  light,  color,  crooked  direction,  noise, 
swift  motion,  being  conducted  by  metals,  subsisting 
in  water  or  ice,  rending  bodies,  killing  animals,  melt- 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

ing  metals,  and  setting  fire  to  various  substances.  It 
remained  to  demonstrate  with  absolute  certainty  that 
lightning  resembled  electricity  in  being  attracted  by 
points  ;  and  for  this  purpose  Franklin  proposed  that 
a  man  stand  in  a  sort  of  sentry-box  on  the  top  of 
some  high  tower  or  steeple  and  with  a  pointed  rod 
draw  electricity  from  passing  thunder-clouds. 

This  suggestion  was  successfully  carried  out  in 
France,  in  the  presence  of  the  king,  at  the  county- 
seat  of  the  Duke  D'Ayen  ;  and  afterwards  Buffon, 
D'Alibard,  and  Du  Lor  confirmed  it  by  experiments 
of  their  own.  But  they  did  not  use  steeples  ;  they 
erected  lofty  iron  rods,  in  one  instance  ninety-nine 
feet  high.  Nevertheless,  it  was  in  effect  the  same 
method  that  Franklin  had  suggested.  The  experi 
ment  was  repeated  in  various  forms  in  England,  and 
the  Philadelphia  philosopher,  postmaster,  and  author 
of  "Poor  Richard"  became  instantly  famous  as  the 
discoverer  of  the  identity  of  lightning  with  electricity. 

Two  years  before  these  experiments  were  inaugu 
rated  he  had  retired  from  business  for  various  rea 
sons,  chief  among  which  was  his  strong  desire  to 
devote  more  time  to  science.  His  letters  continue  to 
be  filled  with  closely  reasoned  details  of  all  sorts  of 
experiments.  So  earnest  were  these  Philadelphia 
investigators,  that  when  Kinnersley  wrote  complain 
ing  that  in  travelling  to  Boston  he  found  difficulty  in 
keeping  up  his  experiments,  Franklin,  in  reply,  sug 
gested  a  portable  electrical  apparatus  which  would 
not  break  on  a  journey. 

In  a  letter  written  to  Collinson  on  October  19, 
1752,  Franklin  says  he  had  heard  of  the  success  in 

i74 


SCIENCE 

France  of  the  experiment  he  had  suggested  for 
drawing  the  lightning  from  clouds  by  means  of  an 
elevated  metal  rod  ;  but  in  the  mean  time  he  had 
contrived  another  method  for  accomplishing  the  same 
result  without  the  aid  of  a  steeple  or  lofty  iron  rod. 
This  was  the  kite  experiment  of  which  we  have  heard 
so  much,  and  he  goes  on  to  describe  it : 

"  Make  a  small  cross  of  two  light  strips  of  cedar,  the  arms  so  long 
as  to  reach  to  the  four  corners  of  a  large  thin  silk  handkerchief  when 
extended ;  tie  the  corners  of  the  handkerchief  to  the  extremities  of 
the  cross,  so  you  have  the  body  of  a  kite ;  which  being  properly 
accommodated  with  a  tail,  loop,  and  string,  will  rise  in  the  air,  like 
those  made  of  paper;  but  this  being  of  silk  is  fitter  to  bear  the  wet 
and  wind  of  a  thunder  gust  without  tearing. v  To  the  top  of  the  up 
right  stick  of  the  cross  is  to  be  fixed  a  very  sharp  pointed  wire,  rising 
a  foot  or  more  above  the  wood.  To  the  end  of  the  twine,  next  the 
hand,  is  to  be  tied  a  silk  ribbon,  and  where  the  silk  and  twine  join,  a 
key  may  be  fastened.  This  kite  is  to  be  raised  when  a  thunder-gust 
appears  to  be  coming  on,  and  the  person  who  holds  the  string  must 
stand  within  a  door  or  window,  or  under  some  cover,  so  that  the  silk 
ribbon  may  not  be  wet ;  and  care  must  be  taken  that  the  twine  does 
not  touch  the  frame  of  the  door  or  window.  As  soon  as  any  of  the 
thunder  clouds  come  over  the  kite,  the  pointed  wire  will  draw  the 
electric  fire  from  them,  and  the  kite,  with  all  the  twine,  will  be  elec 
trified,  and  the  loose  filaments  of  the  twine,  will  stand  out  every  way, 
and  be  attracted  by  an  approaching  finger.  And  when  the  rain  has 
wetted  the  kite  and  twine,  so  that  it  can  conduct  the  electric  fire 
freely,  you  will  find  it  stream  out  plentifully  from  the  key  on  the  ap 
proach  of  your  knuckle.  At  this  key  the  phial  may  be  charged :  and 
from  electric  fire  thus  obtained,  spirits  may  be  kindled,  and  all  the 
other  electric  experiments  be  performed,  which  are  usually  done  by 
the  help  of  a  rubbed  glass  globe  or  tube,  and  thereby  the  sameness 
of  the  electric  matter  with  that  of  lightning  completely  demonstrated." 

This  is  the  only  description  by  Franklin  of  the 
experiment  which  added  so  much  to  his  reputation. 
Franklin  and  the  kite  became  a  story  for  school- 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

books  ;  innumerable  pictures  of  him  and  his  son 
drawing  the  lightning  down  the  string  were  made  and 
reproduced  for  a  century  or  more  in  every  con 
ceivable  form,  and  even  engraved  on  some  of  our 
national  currency. 

The  experiment  was  made  in  June,  1752  ;  in  the 
following  October  the  above  letter  was  written,  and 
the  news  it  contained  appears  to  have  rushed  over 
the  world  without  any  effort  on  his  part  to  spread  it 
He  never  wrote  anything  more  concerning  this  ex 
periment  than  the  very  simple  and  unaffected  letter 
to  Mr.  Collinson.  But  people,  of  course,  asked  him 
about  it,  and  from  the  details  which  they  professed 
to  have  obtained  grand  statements  have  been  built 
up  describing  his  conduct  and  emotions  on  that 
memorable  June  afternoon  on  the  outskirts  of  Phila 
delphia,  probably  somewhere  in  the  neighborhood  of 
the  present  Vine  Street,  near  Fourth  ;  how  his  heart 
stood  still  with  anxiety  lest  the  trial  should  fail ;  how 
with  trembling  hand  he  applied  his  knuckles  to  the 
key,  and  the  wild  exultation  with  which  he  saw  suc 
cess  crown  his  efforts. 

But  it  is  safe  to  say  that  there  were  none  of  these 
theatrical  exhibitions,  and  that  he  made  the  experi 
ment  in  that  matter-of-fact  and  probably  half-humor 
ous  way  in  which  he  did  everything.  Nothing  im 
portant  depended  on  it,  for  he  had  already  proved 
conclusively,  not  only  by  reasoning  but  by  his  sug 
gested  experiments  which  had  been  tried  in  Europe, 
that  thunder  and  lightning  were  phenomena  of  elec 
tricity.  The  kite  was  used  because  there  were  in 
Philadelphia  no  high  steeples  on  which  he  could  try 

176 


SCIENCE 

the  experiment  that  had  proved  his  discovery  in 
France. 

But  it  was  Franklin's  good  fortune  on  a  number 
of  occasions  to  be  placed  in  picturesque  and  striking 
situations,  which  greatly  increased  his  fame.  He  did 
not  foresee  that  kite-flying  would  be  one  of  these, 
and  as  it  was  not  essential  to  his  discovery  of  the 
nature  of  lightning,  he  was  disinclined  at  first  to 
think  much  of  it,  and  did  not  even  report  it  to  Mr. 
Collinson  until  after  several  months  had  elapsed. 
But  the  world  fixed  upon  it  instantly  as  something 
easy  to  remember.  To  this  day  it  is  the  popular  way 
of  illustrating  Franklin's  disco veiy,  and  is  all  that 
most  people  know  of  his  contributions  to  science. 

He  went  on  steadily  reporting  his  experiments  to 
Collinson,  and  in  1753  was  at  work  on  the  mistaken 
hypothesis  of  the  sea  being  the  grand  source  of 
lightning,  but  at  the  same  time  making  the  discovery 
of  the  negative  and  sometimes  positive  electricity 
of  the  clouds.  He  had  a  rod  erected  on  his  house 
to  draw  down  into  it  the  mystical  fire  of  any  passing 
clouds,  with  bells  arranged  to  warn  him  when  his 
apparatus  was  working ;  and  it  was  about  this  time 
that  he  was  struck  senseless  and  almost  killed  while 
trying  the  effect  of  an  electrical  shock  on  a  turkey. 

Collinson  kept  his  letters,  and  in  May,  1751,  had 
them  published  in  a  pamphlet  called  "  New  Experi 
ments  and  Observations  in  Electricity  made  at  Phil 
adelphia  in  America."  It  had  immediately,  like  all 
of  Franklin's  writings,  a  vast  success,  at  first  in 
France,  and  afterwards  in  England  and  other  coun 
tries.  Franklin  was,  strange  to  say,  always  more 
"  177 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

popular  in  France  than  in  either  America  or  Eng 
land.  In  England  his  experiments  in  electricity 
were  at  first  laughed  at,  and  the  Royal  Society  re 
fused  to  publish  his  letters  in  their  proceedings. 
But  after  Collinson  had  secured  their  publication  in 
a  pamphlet,  they  were  translated  into  German,  Italian, 
and  Latin,  as  well  as  into  French,  and  were  greatly 
admired  not  only  for  the  discoveries  and  knowledge 
they  revealed,  but  for  their  fascinating  style  and 
noble  candor  tinged  occasionally  with  the  most 
telling  and  homely  humor. 

It  has  been  repeatedly  charged  that  Franklin  was 
indebted  to  his  fellow-worker,  Kinnersley,  for  his 
discoveries  in  electricity.  The  charge  is  so  vaguely 
made  that  it  is  impossible  to  ascertain  which  of 
them  are  supposed  to  have  been  stolen.  In  Frank 
lin's  letters  on  electricity  there  are  frequent  foot 
notes  giving  credit  to  Hopkinson  and  Syng  for  their 
original  work,  and  there  are  also  in  his  published 
works  letters  to  and  from  Kinnersley.  He  and 
Kinnersley  seem  to  have  been  always  fast  friends, 
and,  so  far  as  I  can  discover,  the  latter  never 
accused  Franklin  of  stealing  from  him. 

After  he  had  proved  in  such  a  brilliant  manner 
that  lightning  was  merely  one  of  the  forms  or  phe 
nomena  of  that  mysterious  fire  which  appears  when 
we  rub  a  glass  tube  with  buckskin,  Franklin  made 
no  more  discoveries  in  science  ;  but  his  interest  and 
patience  of  research  were  unabated.  He  cannot 
be  ranked  among  the  great  men  of  science,  the 
Newtons  and  Keplers,  or  the  Humboldts,  Huxleys, 
or  Darwins.  He  belongs  rather  in  the  second  class, 

178 


SCIENCE 

among  the  minor  discoverers.  But  his  discovery  of 
the  nature  of  lightning  was  so  striking  and  so  capa 
ble  of  arousing  the  wonder  of  the  masses  of  man 
kind,  and  his  invention  of  the  lightning-rod  was 
regarded  as  so  universally  valuable,  that  he  has  re 
ceived  more  popular  applause  than  men  whose 
achievements  were  greater  and  more  important. 

During  the  rest  of  his  life  his  work  in  science  was 
principally  in  the  way  of  encouraging  its  study. 
He  was  always  observing,  collecting  facts,  and 
writing  out  his  conclusions.  The  public  business 
in  which  he  was  soon  constantly  employed,  and 
the  long  years  of  his  diplomatic  service  in  England 
and  France,  were  serious  interruptions,  and  during 
the  last  part  of  his  life  it  was  not  often  that  he  could 
steal  time  for  that  loving  investigation  of  nature 
which  after  his  thirtieth  year  became  the  great 
passion  of  his  life. 

His  command  of  language  had  seldom  been  put 
to  better  use  than  in  explaining  the  rather  subtle 
ideas  and  conceptions  in  the  early  development  of 
electricity.  Even  now  after  the  lapse  of  one  hun 
dred  and  fifty  years  we  seem  to  gain  a  fresher  un 
derstanding  of  that  subject  by  reading  his  homely 
and  beautiful  explanations ;  and  modern  students 
would  have  an  easier  time  if  Franklin  were  still  here 
to  write  their  text-books.  His  subsequent  letters 
and  essays  were  many  of  them  even  more  happily 
expressed  than  the  famous  letters  on  electricity. 

In  old  editions  of  his  works  all  his  writings  on 
science  were  collected  in  one  place,  so  that  they 
could  be  read  consecutively,  which  was  rather  better 

179 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

than  the  modern  strictly  chronological  plan  by  which 
they  are  scattered  throughout  eight  or  ten  large  vol 
umes.  As  we  look  over  one  of  the  old  editions  we 
feel  almost  compelled  to  begin  original  research  at 
once, — it  seems  so  easy  and  pretty.  There  are  long 
investigations  about  water-spouts  and  whirlwinds, — 
whether  a  water-spout  ever  actually  touches  the  sur 
face  of  the  sea,  and  whether  its  action  is  downward 
from  the  sky  or  upward  from  the  water.  He  inter 
viewed  sea-captains  and  received  letters  from  people 
in  the  West  Indies  to  help  him,  and  those  who  had 
once  come  within  the  circle  of  his  fascination  were 
never  weary  of  giving  aid. 

He  investigated  what  he  called  the  light  in  sea- 
water,  now  called  phosphorescence.  The  cause  of 
the  saltness  of  the  sea  and  the  existence  of  masses 
of  salt  or  salt-mines  in  the  earth  he  explained  by  the 
theory  that  all  the  water  of  the  world  had  once  been 
salt,  for  sea-shells  and  the  bones  of  fishes  were  found, 
he  said,  on  high  land  ;  upheavals  had  isolated  parts 
of  the  original  water,  which  on  evaporation  had  left 
the  salt,  and  this  being  covered  with  earth,  became  a 
salt-mine.  This  explanation  was  given  in  a  letter 
to  his  brother  Peter,  and  is  really  a  little  essay  on 
geology,  which  was  then  not  known  by  that  or  any 
other  name,  but  consisted  merely  of  a  few  scattered 
observations. 

Many  of  his  most  interesting  explanations  of  phe 
nomena  appear  in  letters  to  the  young  women  with 
whom  he  was  on  such  friendly  terms.  Indeed,  it 
has  been  said  that  he  was  never  at  his  best  except 
when  writing  to  women.  People  believe,  he  tells 

180 


SCIENCE 

Miss  Stevenson,  that  all  rivers  run  into  the  sea,  and 
he  goes  on  to  show  in  his  most  clever  way  that 
some  rivers  do  not.  The  waters  of  the  Delaware, 
for  example,  and  the  waters  of  the  rivers  that  flow 
into  Chesapeake  Bay,  probably  never  reach  the 
ocean.  The  salt  water  backing  up  against  them 
twice  a  day  acts  as  a  dam,  and  their  fresh  water  is 
dissipated  by  evaporation.  Only  a  few,  like  the 
Amazon  and  the  Orinoco,  are  known  to  force  their 
fresh  water  far  out  on  the  surface  of  the  sea.  In  this 
same  letter  he  describes  the  experiments  he  made  to 
prove  that  dark  colors  absorb  more  of  the  sun's  rays, 
and  are  therefore  warmer  than  white. 

While  representing  Pennsylvania  in  England,  and 
living  with  Mrs.  Stevenson,  in  Craven  Street,  Lon 
don,  he  made  an  experiment  to  prove  that  vessels 
move  faster  in  deep  than  in  shallow  water.  This  was 
generally  believed  by  seafaring  men  ;  but  Franklin 
had  a  wooden  trough  made  with  a  false  bottom  by 
which  he  could  regulate  the  depth  of  water,  and  he 
put  in  it  a  little  boat  drawn  by  a  string  which  ran 
over  a  pulley  at  the  end  of  the  trough,  with  a  shil 
ling  attached  for  a  weight.  In  this  way  he  suc 
ceeded  in  demonstrating  a  natural  law  which,  though 
known  to  practical  men,  had  never  been  described 
in  books  of  science. 

He  took  much  pains  to  collect  information  about 
the  Gulf  Stream.  This  wonderful  river  in  the 
ocean  has  been  long  known,  but  the  first  people  to 
observe  it  closely  were  the  Nantucket  whalemen, 
who  found  that  their  game  was  numerous  on  the 
edges  of  it,  but  was  never  seen  within  its  warm 

.8, 


THE   TRUE  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

waters.  In  consequence  of  their  more  exact  knowl 
edge  they  were  able  to  make  faster  voyages  than 
other  seamen.  Franklin  learned  about  it  from  them, 
and  on  his  numerous  voyages  made  many  observa 
tions,  which  he  carefully  recorded.  He  obtained  a 
map  of  it  from  one  of  the  whalemen,  which  he 
caused  to  be  engraved  for  the  general  benefit  of 
navigation  on  the  old  London  chart  then  universally 
used  by  sailors.  But  the  British  captains  slighted  it, 
and  this,  like  his  other  efforts  in  science,  was  first 
appreciated  in  France. 

He  has  been  called  the  discoverer  of  the  tempera 
ture  of  the  Gulf  Stream  ;  but  this  statement  is  some 
what  misleading.  That  the  stream  was  warmer  than 
the  surrounding  ocean  seems  to  have  been  long 
known  ;  but  Franklin  was  the  first  to  take  its  tem 
perature  at  different  points  with  a  thermometer.  He 
did  this  most  systematically  on  several  of  his  voyages, 
even  when  suffering  severely  from  sea-sickness,  and 
thus  suggested  the  use  of  the  thermometer  in  investi 
gating  ocean  currents.  He  first  took  these  tempera 
tures  in  1775,  and  the  next  year  Dr.  Charles  Blagden, 
of  the  British  army,  took  them  while  on  the  voyage  to 
America  with  troops  to  suppress  the  Revolution. 
He  and  Franklin  are  ranked  together  as  the  first  to 
show  the  value  of  an  instrument  which  is  now  uni 
versally  used  in  ocean  experiments  as  well  as  in  the 
practical  navigation  of  ships.* 

In  the  same  careful  manner  he  collected  all  that 
was  known  of  the  effect  of  oil  in  stilling  waves  by 


*  Pillsbury's  Gulf  Stream,  published  by  the  U.  S.  government. 
182 


SCIENCE 

making  the  surface  so  smooth  and  slippery  that  the 
wind  cannot  act  on  it.  So  fascinated  was  he  with 
this  investigation  that  he  had  a  cane  made  with  a 
little  receptacle  for  oil  in  the  head  of  it,  arid  when 
walking  in  the  country  in  England  experimented  on 
every  pond  he  passed.  But  it  would  be  long  to  tell 
of  all  he  wrote  on  light  and  heat,  the  vis  inertia  of 
matter,  magnetism,  rainfall,  evaporation,  and  the 
aurora  borealis. 

One  of  the  discomforts  of  colonial  times,  when 
large  open  fireplaces  were  so  common,  was  a  smoky 
chimney.  Franklin's  attention  was  drawn  to  this 
question  about  the  time  that  he  invented  the  Penn 
sylvania  fireplaces,  and  he  made  an  exhaustive  study 
of  the  nature  of  smoke  and  heated  air.  He  became 
very  skilful  in  correcting  defects  in  the  chimneys  of 
his  friends'  houses,  and  while  he  was  in  England 
noblemen  and  distinguished  people  often  sought  his 
aid.  It  was  not,  however,  until  1785,  near  the  close 
of  his  life,  that  he  put  his  knowledge  in  writing  in  a 
letter  to  Dr.  Ingenhausz,  physician  to  the  Emperor 
of  Austria.  The  letter  was  published  and  exten 
sively  circulated  as  the  best  summary  of  all  that  was 
known  on  this  important  question.  It  is  as  fresh  and 
interesting  to-day  as  when  it  was  written,  and  well 
worth  reading,  because  it  explains  so  charmingly  the 
philosophy  of  some  phenomena  of  common  occur 
rence  which  modern  books  of  science  are  not  at 
much  pains  to  make  clear. 

His  enemies,  of  course,  ridiculed  him  as  a  chimney 
doctor,  and  his  friends  have  gone  to  the  other  extreme 
in  implying  that  he  was  the  only  man  in  the  world 


ti  UF 


THE  TRUE  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

who  understood  the  action  of  heat  and  smoke,  and 
that,  alone  and  unaided,  he  delivered  mankind  from 
a  great  destroyer  of  their  domestic  comfort.  But  his 
letter  shows  that  most  of  his  knowledge  and  reme 
dies  were  drawn  from  the  French  and  Germans.  In 
this,  as  in  many  other  similar  services,  he  was  merely 
an  excellent  collector  of  scattered  material,  which  he 
summarized  so  well  that  it  was  more  available  than 
before.  He  was  by  no  means  the  only  person  in  the 
world  who  could  doctor  a  chimney ;  but  there  were 
few,  if  any,  who  could  describe  in  such  beautiful 
language  the  way  in  which  it  was  done. 

He  invented  a  stove  that  would  consume  its  own 
smoke,  taking  the  principle  from  a  Frenchman  who 
had  shown  how  the  flame  of  a  burning  substance 
could  be  made  to  draw  downward  through  the  fuel, 
so  that  the  smoke  was  burnt  with  the  fuel.  But  the 
way  in  which  this  invention  is  usually  described 
would  lead  one  to  suppose  that  it  was  entirely  origi 
nal  with  Franklin. 

He  was  much  interested  in  agriculture,  and  was 
an  earnest  advocate  of  mineral  manures,  encouraged 
grape  culture,  and  helped  to  introduce  the  basket 
willow  and  broom-corn  into  the  United  States.  He 
at  one  time  owned  a  farm  of  three  hundred  acres 
near  Burlington,  New  Jersey,  where  he  tried  agri 
cultural  experiments.  He  dabbled  in  medicine,  as 
has  been  shown,  and  also  wasted  time  over  that 
ancient  delusion,  phonetic  spelling. 

Knowing,  as  we  do,  Franklin's  versatility,  it  is 
nevertheless  somewhat  of  a  surprise  to  find  him 
venturing  into  the  sphere  of  music.  He  is  said  to 

184 


SCIENCE 

have  been  able  to  play  on  the  harp,  the  guitar,  and 
the  violin,  but  probably  only  in  a  philosopher's  way 
and  not  well  on  any  of  them.  Some  people  in  Eng 
land  had  succeeded  in  constructing  a  musical  instru 
ment  made  of  glasses,  the  idea  being  taken  from  the 
pleasant  sound  produced  by  passing  a  wet  finger 
round  the  brim  of  a  drinking-glass.  When  in  Eng 
land  Franklin  was  so  delighted  with  these  instru 
ments  that  he  set  about  improving  them.  He  had 
glasses  specially  moulded  of  a  bell-like  shape  and 
ground  with  great  care  until  each  had  its  proper 
note.  They  were  placed  in  a  frame  in  such  a  way 
that  they  could  all  be  set  revolving  at  once  by  means 
of  a  treadle  worked  by  the  foot,  and  as  they  revolved 
they  were  played  by  the  wet  fingers  pressed  on  their 
brims.  He  gave  the  name  "Armonica"  to  his  in 
strument,  and  describes  its  tones  as  "incomparably 
sweet  beyond  those  of  any  other."  It  is  said  to  have 
been  used  in  public  concerts,  and  it  was  one  of  the 
curiosities  at  his  famous  Craven  Street  lodging-house 
in  London,  where  he  also  had  a  fine  electrical  ap 
paratus,  and  took  pleasure  in  showing  his  English 
friends  the  American  experiments  of  which  they  had 
heard  so  much. 

He  seems  to  have  studied  music  with  great  care 
as  a  science,  just  as  he  studied  the  whirlwinds, 
the  smoke,  and  the  lightning ;  but  he  was  unalter 
ably  opposed  to  the  so-called  modern  music  then 
becoming  fashionable,  and  which  is  still  to  a  great 
extent  the  music  of  our  time.  The  pleasure  de 
rived  from  it  was,  he  said,  not  the  natural  pleasure 
caused  by  harmony  of  sounds,  but  rather  that  felt 

185 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

on  seeing  the  surprising  feats  of  tumblers  and  rope- 
dancers. 

"  Many  pieces  of  it  are  mere  compositions  of  tricks.  I  have 
sometimes,  at  a  concert,  attended  by  a  common  audience,  placed  my 
self  so  as  to  see  all  their  faces,  and  observed  no  signs  of  pleasure  in 
them  during  the  performance  of  a  great  part  that  was  admired  by  the 
performers  themselves ;  while  a  plain  old  Scotch  tune,  which  they 
disdained,  and  could  scarcely  be  prevailed  upon  to  play,  gave  mani 
fest  and  general  delight." 

In  a  letter  to  Lord  Kames  which  has  been  often 
quoted  he  explained  at  length,  and  for  the  most  part 
in  very  technical  language,  the  reasons  for  the  supe 
riority  of  the  Scotch  tunes. 

"  Farther,  when  we  consider  by  whom  these  ancient  tunes  were 
composed  and  how  they  were  first  performed  we  shall  see  that  such 
harmonical  successions  of  sounds  were  natural  and  even  necessary 
in  their  construction.  They  were  composed  by  the  minstrels  of 
those  days  to  be  played  on  the  harp  accompanied  by  the  voice.  The 
harp  was  strung  with  wire,  which  gives  a  sound  of  long  continuance 
and  had  no  contrivance  like  that  in  the  modern  harpsichord,  by  which 
the  sound  of  the  preceding  could  be  stopped  the  moment  a  succeed 
ing  note  began.  To  avoid  actual  discord,  it  was  therefore  necessary 
that  the  succeeding  emphatic  note  should  be  a  chord  with  the  pre 
ceding,  as  their  sounds  must  exist  at  the  same  time.  Hence  arose 
that  beauty  in  those  tunes  that  has  so  long  pleased,  and  will  please 
forever,  though  men  scarce  know  why." 

Franklin's  numerous  voyages  naturally  turned  his 
mind  to  problems  of  the  sea.  He  pondered  much 
on  the  question  whether  the  daily  motion  of  the 
earth  from  west  to  east  would  increase  the  speed  of 
a  ship  sailing  eastward  and  retard  it  on  a  westward 
passage.  He  was  not  quite  sure  that  the  earth's 
motion  would  have  such  an  effect,  but  he  thought  it 

possible. 

1 86 


SCIENCE 

"  I  wish  I  had  mathematics  enough  to  satisfy  myself  whether  the 
much  shorter  voyages  made  by  ships  bound  hence  to  England,  than 
by  those  from  England  hither,  are  not  in  some  degree  owing  to  the 
diurnal  motion  of  the  earth,  and  if  so  in  what  degree.  It  is  a  notion 
that  has  lately  entered  my  mind ;  I  know  not  if  ever  any  other's." 
(Bigelow's  Works  of  Franklin,  vol.  ii.  p.  14.) 

He  referred  to  the  subject  again  soon  after,  and 
finally  a  few  years  before  his  death,*  but  always  as 
an  unsettled  question.  The  idea  seems  never  to 
have  got  beyond  the  stage  of  investigation  with 
him,  but  Parton  has  built  up  out  of  it  a  wonderful 
discovery. 

"  He  conceived  an  idea  still  more  practically  useful,  which  has 
since  given  rise  to  a  little  library  of  nautical  works,  and  conferred 
unmerited  honor  upon  a  naval  charlatan — Maury.  This  idea  was  that 
by  studying  the  form  and  motions  of  the  earth  and  directing  a  ship's 
course  so  that  it  shall  partake  of  the  earth's  diurnal  motion  a  voyage 
may  be  materially  shortened."  (Parton's  "  Life  of  Franklin,"  vol.  ii. 
p.  72.) 

This  is  certainly  a  most  extraordinary  statement 
to  be  made  by  a  writer  like  Parton,  who  has  given 
the  main  facts  of  Franklin's  life  with  considerable 
fidelity.  He  refers  to  it  again  in  another  passage,  in 
which  he  says  that  this  method  of  navigation  is  now 
used  by  all  intelligent  seamen.  But  there  is  no  evi 
dence  that  it  was  ever  so  used.  He  may  have  con 
fused  it  with  great  circle  sailing.  The  theory  is  an 
exploded  one.  There  is  no  library  of  nautical  works 
on  the  subject,  and  I  think  that  the  officers  of  the 
United  States  navy,  the  captains  of  the  great  ocean 
liners,  and  thousands  of  sailors  all  over  the  world 


*  Bigelow's  Works  of  Franklin,  vol.  ii.  p.  331 ;  vol.  ix.  p.  185. 
187 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

would  be  very  much  surprised  to  hear  Maury  called 
a  charlatan. 

Maury 's  wonderful  investigations  were  not  in  the 
line  of  sailing  a  ship  so  as  to  take  advantage  of  the 
earth's  diurnal  motion,  and  could  not  have  been 
suggested  by  such  an  idea.  He  explored  the 
physical  geography  of  the  sea,  and  particularly  the 
currents,  trade-winds,  and  zones  of  calm.  It  was 
he  who  first  worked  out  the  shortest  routes  from 
place  to  place,  which  are  still  used.  Although  he 
never  made  a  picturesque  and  brilliant  discovery 
about  lightning,  and  had  not  Franklin's  exquisite 
power  of  expression,  he  was  a  much  more  remark 
able  man  of  science. 

In  a  long  letter  to  Alphonsus  Le  Roy,  of  Paris, 
written  in  1785,  on  his  voyage  home  from  France 
with  Captain  Truxton,  Franklin  summed  up  all  his 
maritime  observations,  including  what  he  knew  of 
the  Gulf  Stream.  This  letter  is  full  of  most  curious 
suggestions  for  the  navigation  of  ships,  and  was  ac 
companied  by  a  plate  of  carefully  drawn  figures, 
which  has  been  reproduced  in  most  editions  of  his 
works. 

So  much  attention  had  been  given,  he  said,  to 
shaping  the  hull  of  a  vessel  so  as  to  offer  the  least 
resistance  to  the  water,  that  it  was  time  the  sails  were 
shaped  so  as  to  offer  the  least  resistance  to  the  air. 
He  proposed  to  do  this  by  making  the  sails  smaller 
and  increasing  their  number,  and  contrived  a  most 
curious  rig  (Fig.  4)  which  he  thought  would  offer  the 
least  resistance  both  in  sailing  free  and  in  beating  to 
-d. 

1 88 


FRANKLIN'S  MA 


fy.te 


ME   SUGGESTIONS 


• 


SCIENCE 

Figs.  5,  6,  and  7  show  why,  in  those  days  of  rope 
cables,  a  ship  was  always  breaking  the  cable  where 
it  bent  at  right  angles  just  outside  the  hawse-hole. 
All  the  strain  was  on  the  outer  strands  of  the  rope 
at  a  b  c,  Fig.  7,  and  as  they  broke  the  others  fol 
lowed  one  by  one.  His  remedy  for  this  was  to  have 
a  large  wheel  or  pulley  in  the  hawse-hoi. 

Figs.  8  and  9  show  how  a  vessel  with  a  leak  at 
first  fills  very  rapidly,  so  that  the  crew,  finding  they 
cannot  gain  on  the  water  with  the  pumps,  take  to 
their  boats.  But  if  they  would  remain  they  would 
find  after  a  while  that  the  quantity  entering  would 
be  less  as  the  surfaces  without  and  within  became 
more  nearly  equal,  and  that  the  pumps  would  now 
be  able  to  prevent  it  from  rising  higher.  The  water 
would  also  begin  to  reach  light  wooden  work,  empty 
chests,  and  water-casks,  which  would  give  buoy 
ancy,  and  thus  the  ship  could  be  kept  afloat  longer 
than  the  crew  at  first  expected.  In  this  connection 
he  calls  attention  to  the  Chinese  method  of  water 
tight  compartments  which  Mr.  Le  Roy  had  already 
adopted  in  his  boat  on  the  Seine. 

Fig.  1 2  is  intended  to  show  the  loss  of  power  in  a 
paddle-wheel  because  the  stroke  from  A  to  B  is 
downward  and  from  D  to  X  upward,  and  the  only 
effective  stroke  is  from  B  to  D.  A  better  method 
of  propulsion,  he  thinks,  is  by  pumping  water  out 
through  the  stern,  as  shown  in  Figs.  13  and  14. 

Figs.  15,  1 6,  17,  1 8,  19,  20,  21,  and  22  illustrate 
methods  of  making  floating  sea  anchors  by  which  to 
lay  a  vessel  to  in  a  gale.  Fig.  24  shows  how  a  heavy 
boat  may  be  drawn  ashore  by  bending  the  rope  from 

189 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

C  to  D.  Fig.  23  represents  a  new  way  of  planking 
ships  to  secure  greater  strength,  and  Figs.  26  and 
27  are  soup-dishes  which  will  not  spill  in  a  heavy 
sea.  But  this  delightful  letter  is  published  in  all  of 
the  editions  of  his  works,  and  should  be  read  in  order 
to  render  his  ingenious  contrivances  intelligible. 

Among  the  few  of  Franklin's  writings  on  scientific 
subjects  which  are  not  in  the  form  of  letters  is  an 
essay,  entitled  "  Peopling  of  Countries,"  supposed 
to  have  been  written  in  1751.  It  is  in  part  intended 
to  show  that  Great  Britain  was  not  injured  by  the 
immigration  to  America ;  the  gap  was  soon  filled 
up  ;  and  the  colonies,  by  consuming  British  manu 
factures,  increased  the  resources  of  the  mother 
country.  The  essay  is  full  of  reflections  on  political 
economy,  which  had  not  then  become  a  science,  and 
the  twenty-second  section  contains  the  statement 
that  there  is  no  bound  to  the  productiveness  of 
plants  and  animals  other  than  that  occasioned  by 
their  crowding  and  interfering  with  one  another's 
means  of  subsistence.  This  statement  supplied  Mal- 
thus  with  the  foundation  for  his  famous  theory  that 
the  population  of  the  earth  increased  in  a  geometrical 
ratio,  while  the  means  of  subsistence  increased  only 
in  an  arithmetical  ratio,  and  some  of  those  who  op 
posed  this  theory  devoted  themselves  to  showing 
error  in  Franklin's  twenty-second  section  rather 
than  to  disputing  the  conclusions  of  Malthus,  which 
they  believed  would  fall  if  Franklin  could  be  shown 
to  be  in  the  wrong. 

He  investigated  the  new  field  of  political  economy 
with  the  same  thoroughness  as  the  other  depart- 

190 


SCIENCE 

ments  of  science,  and  wrote  on  national  wealth,  the 
price  of  corn,  free  trade,  the  effects  of  luxury,  idle 
ness,  and  industry,  the  slave-trade,  and  peace  and 
war.  The  humor  and  imagination  in  one  of  his  let 
ters  to  Dr.  Priestley  on  war  justify  the  quoting  of  a 
part  of  it : 

"  A  young  angel  of  distinction  being  sent  down  to  this  world  on 
some  business,  for  the  first  time,  had  an  old  courier-spirit  assigned 
him  as  a  guide.  They  arrived  over  the  seas  of  Martinico,  in  the 
middle  of  the  long  day  of  obstinate  fight  between  the  fleets  of  Rod 
ney  and  De  Grasse.  When  through  the  clouds  of  smoke  he  saw 
the  fire  of  the  guns,  the  decks  covered  with  mangled  limbs  and 
bodies  dead  and  dying,  or  blown  into  the  air,  and  the  quantity  of 
pain,  misery,  and  destruction  the  crews  yet  alive  were  thus  with  so 
much  eagerness  dealing  round  to  one  another,  he  turned  angrily  to 
his  guide  and  said,  '  You  blundering  blockhead,  you  are  ignorant 
of  your  business;  you  undertook  to  conduct  me  to  the  earth  and 
you  have  brought  me  into  hell !'  "  No,  sir,'  says  the  guide,  '  I  have 
made  no  mistake;  this  is  really  the  earth,  and  these  are  men. 
Devils  never  treat  one  another  in  this  cruel  manner ;  they  have  more 
sense,  and  more  of  what  men  (vainly)  call  humanity.'  "  (Bigelow's 
Works  of  Franklin,  vol.  vii.  p.  465.) 


191 


VI 

THE    PENNSYLVANIA    POLITICIAN 

WHILE  Franklin  kept  his  little  stationery  shop 
and  printing-office,  sent  out  his  almanacs  every 
year,  read  and  studied,  experimented  in  science, 
and  hoped  for  an  assured  income  which  would 
give  larger  leisure  for  study  and  experiment,  he  was 
all  the  time  drifting  more  and  more  into  public  life. 
In  a  certain  sense  he  had  been  accustomed  to  deal 
ing  with  living  public  questions  from  boyhood. 
When  an  apprentice  in  his  teens,  he  had  written 
articles  for  his  brother's  newspaper  attacking  the 
established  religious  and  political  system  of  Massa 
chusetts,  and  during  his  brother's  imprisonment  the 
newspaper  had  been  published  in  the  apprentice's 
name.  In  Pennsylvania  his  own  newspaper,  the 
Gazette,  which  he  established  when  he  was  but 
twenty-three  years  old,  made  him  something  of  a 
public  man;  and  his  pamphlet  in  favor  of  paper 
money,  which  appeared  at  about  the  same  period, 
showed  how  strongly  his  mind  inclined  towards  the 
large  questions  of  government 

When  he  reached  manhood  he  also  developed  a 
strong  inclination  to  assist  in  public  improvements, 
in  the  encouragement  of  thrift  and  comfort,  and  in 
the  relief  of  suffering,  subjects  which  are  now  in 
cluded  under  the  heads  of  philanthropy  and  reform. 

192 


THE   PENNSYLVANIA   POLITICIAN 

He  had  in  full  measure  the  social  and  public  spirit 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon,  the  spirit  which  instinctively 
builds  up  the  community  while  at  the  same  time  it 
is  deeply  devoted  to  its  own  concerns.  The  only 
one  of  his  ancestors  that  had  risen  above  humble 
conditions  was  of  this  sort,  and  had  been  a  leader  in 
the  public  affairs  of  a  village. 

His  natural  disposition  towards  benevolent  enter 
prises  was  much  stimulated,  he  tells  us,  by  a  book 
called  "Essays  to  do  Good,"  by  the  eminent  Massa 
chusetts  divine,  Cotton  Mather,  of  witchcraft  fame. 
He  also  read  about  the  same  time  De  Foe's  "  Essay 
upon  Projects,"  a  volume  recommending  asylums 
for  the  insane,  technical  schools,  mutual  benefit 
societies,  improved  roads,  better  banking,  bankrupt 
laws,  and  other  things  which  have  now  become  the 
commonplace  characteristics  of  our  age. 

His  club,  the  Junto,  was  the  first  important  fruit 
of  this  benevolent  disposition.  At  first  its  members 
kept  all  their  books  at  its  rooms  for  the  common 
benefit ;  but  some  of  the  books  having  been  injured, 
all  were  taken  back  by  the  owners,  and  this  loss 
suggested  to  Franklin  the  idea  of  a  circulating 
library  supported  by  subscriptions.  He  drew  up  a 
plan  and  went  about  soliciting  money  in  1731,  but 
it  took  him  more  than  a  year  to  collect  forty-five 
pounds.  James  Logan,  the  secretary  of  the  prov 
ince,  gave  advice  as  to  what  books  to  buy,  and  the 
money  was  sent  to  London  to  be  expended  by  Mr. 
Peter  Collinson,  to  whom  Franklin's  famous  letters 
on  electricity  were  afterwards  written. 

Mr.  Collinson  was  the  literary  and  philosophic 
«3  193 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

agent  of  Pennsylvania  in  those  days.  To  him  John 
Bartram,  the  first  American  botanist,  sent  the  plants 
that  he  collected  in  the  New  World,  and  Mr.  Col- 
linson  obtained  for  him  the  money  with  which  to 
pursue  his  studies.  Collinson  encouraged  the  new 
library  in  every  way.  For  thirty  years  he  made  for 
it  the  annual  purchase  of  books,  always  adding  one 
or  two  volumes  as  a  present,  and  it  will  be  remem 
bered  that  it  was  through  him  that  Franklin  ob 
tained  the  electrical  tube  which  started  him  on  his 
remarkable  discoveries. 

The  library  began  its  existence  at  the  Junto's 
rooms  and  grew  steadily.  Influential  people  gradu 
ally  became  interested  in  it  and  added  their  gifts. 
For  half  a  century  it  occupied  rooms  in  various 
buildings, — at  one  time  in  the  State-House,  and 
during  the  Revolution  in  Carpenters'  Hall, — until 
in  1 790,  the  year  of  Franklin's  death,  it  erected  a 
pretty  building  on  Fifth  Street,  opposite  Indepen 
dence  square.  During  the  period  from  1731  to  1790 
similar  libraries  were  established  in  the  town,  which 
it  absorbed  one  by  one :  in  1 769  the  Union  Library, 
in  1771  the  Association  Library  Company  and  Ami 
cable  Library  Company,  and,  finally,  in  1790  the 
Loganian  Library,  which  James  Logan  had  estab 
lished  by  his  will.  Before  the  Revolution  the  num 
ber  of  books  increased  but  slowly,  and  in  1785  was 
only  5487.  They  now  number  190,000. 

Franklin  says  that  it  was  the  mother  of  subscrip 
tion  libraries  in  North  America,  and  that  in  a  few 
years  the  colonists  became  more  of  a  reading  people, 
and  the  common  tradesmen  and  farmers  were  as 

194 


THE  PENNSYLVANIA   POLITICIAN 

intelligent  as  most  gentlemen  from  other  countries. 
This  statement  seems  to  be  justified  ;  for  within  a 
few  years  libraries  sprang  up  in  New  England  and 
the  South,  and  they  may  have  been  suggested  by  the 
Philadelphia  Library  which  Franklin  founded. 

I  have  already  shown  how  Franklin  established 
the  academy  which  soon  became  the  College  of 
Philadelphia,  but  this  was  some  twenty  years  after 
he  founded  the  library.  Almost  immediately  after 
the  academy  was  started  Dr.  Thomas  Bond  sought 
his  assistance  in  establishing  a  hospital.  Pennsyl 
vania  was  receiving  at  that  time  great  numbers  of 
German  immigrants,  who  arrived  in  crowded  ships 
after  a  voyage  of  months,  in  a  terrible  state  of  dirt 
and  disease.  There  was  no  proper  place  provided 
for  them,  and  they  were  a  source  of  danger  to  the 
rest  of  the  people.  A  hospital  was  needed,  and  Dr. 
Bond,  at  first  meeting  with  but  little  success,  finally 
accomplished  his  object  with  the  assistance  of  Frank 
lin,  who  obtained  for  him  a  grant  of  two  thousand 
pounds  from  the  Assembly,  and  helped  to  stir  up 
subscribers. 

This  was  the  first  hospital  in  America,  and  it  still 
fulfils  its  mission  in  the  beautiful  old  colonial  build 
ings  which  were  originally  erected  for  it.  Additional 
buildings  have  been  since  added,  fortunately,  in  the 
same  style  of  architecture.  For  the  corner-stone 
Franklin  wrote  an  inscription  matchless  for  its  origi 
nality  and  appropriateness  : 

"  In  the  year  of  CHRIST  MDCCLV  George  the  Second  happily 
reigning  (for  he  sought  the  happiness  of  his  people),  Philadelphia 
flourishing  (for  its  inhabitants  were  public  spirited),  this  building, 

195 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

by  the  bounty  of  the  government,  and  of  many  private  persons,  was 
piously  founded  for  the  relief  of  the  sick  and  miserable.  May  the 
GOD  OF  MERCIES  bless  the  undertaking." 

In  the  same  spirit  Franklin  secured  by  a  little 
agitation  the  paving  of  the  street  round  the  market, 
and  afterwards  started  subscriptions  to  keep  this 
pavement  clean.  At  that  time  the  streets  of  Phil 
adelphia,  like  those  of  most  of  the  colonial  towns, 
were  merely  earth  roads,  and  it  was  not  until  some 
years  after  Franklin's  first  efforts  at  the  market  that 
there  was  any  general  paving  done.  He  also 
secured  a  well-regulated  night  watch  for  the  city  in 
place  of  the  disorderly,  drunken  heelers  of  the  con 
stables,  who  had  long  made  a  farce  of  the  duty ; 
and  he  established  a  volunteer  fire  company  which 
was  the  foundation  of  the  system  that  prevailed  in 
Philadelphia  until  the  paid  department  was  intro 
duced  after  the  civil  war. 

The  American  Philosophical  Society,  which  was 
also  originated  by  him,  might  seem  to  be  more 
entitled  to  mention  in  the  chapter  on  science. 
But  it  was  really  a  benevolent  enterprise,  intended 
to  propagate  useful  knowledge,  to  encourage  agri 
culture,  trade,  and  the  mechanic  arts,  and  to  multi 
ply  the  conveniences  and  pleasures  of  life.  He  first 
suggested  it  in  1743,  in  which  year  he  prepared  a 
plan  for  a  society  for  promoting  useful  knowledge, 
and  one  appears  to  have  been  organized  which  led 
a  languishing  existence  until  1769,  when  it  was 
joined  by  another  organization,  called  "The  Ameri 
can  Society  held  at  Philadelphia  for  Promoting  Use 
ful  Knowledge,"  and  from  this  union  resulted  the 

196 


THE   PENNSYLVANIA   POLITICIAN 

American  Philosophical  Society,  which  still  exists. 
Franklin  was  for  a  long  time  its  president,  and  was 
succeeded  by  Rittenhouse.  It  was  the  first  society 
in  America  devoted  to  science.  Thomas  Jefferson 
and  other  prominent  persons  throughout  the  colonies 
were  members  of  it,  and  during  the  colonial  period 
and  long  afterwards  it  held  a  very  important  position. 

Franklin  was  by  nature  a  public  man  ;  but  the 
beginning  of  his  life  as  an  office-holder  may  be  said 
to  have  dated  from  his  appointment  as  clerk  of  the 
Assembly.  This  took  place  in  1736,  when  he  had 
been  in  business  for  himself  for  some  years,  and  his. 
newspaper  and  "  Poor  Richard"  were  well  under 
way.  It  was  a  tiresome  task  to  sit  for  hours  listening 
to  buncombe  speeches,  and  drawing  magic  squares 
and  circles  to  while  away  the  time.  But  he  valued 
the  appointment  because  it  gave  him  influence  with 
the  members  and  a  hold  on  the  public  printing. 

The  second  year  his  election  to  the  office  was  op 
posed  ;  an  influential  member  wanted  the  place  for 
a  friend,  and  Franklin  had  a  chance  to  show  a  phi 
losopher's  skill  in  practical  politics. 

"  Having  heard  that  he  had  in  his  library  a  certain  very  scarce  and 
curious  book,  I  wrote  a  note  to  him,  expressing  my  desire  of  perusing 
that  book,  and  requesting  he  would  do  me  the  favour  of  lending  it 
to  me  for  a  few  days.  He  sent  it  immediately,  and  I  return'd  it  in 
about  a  week  with  another  note,  expressing  strongly  my  sense  of  the 
favour.  When  we  next  met,  in  the  House,  he  spoke  to  me  (which 
he  had  never  done  before),  and  with  great  civility;  and  he  ever  after 
manifested  a  readiness  to  serve  me  on  all  occasions,  so  that  we  be 
came  great  friends  and  our  friendship  continued  to  his  death.  This 
is  another  instance  of  the  truth  of  an  old  maxim  I  had  learned,  which 
says  '  He  that  has  once  done  you  a  kindness  will  be  more  ready  to  do 
you  another,  than  he  whom  you  yourself  have  obliged.'  "  (Bigelow's 
Franklin  from  his  own  Writings,  vol.  i.  p.  260.) 

197 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

Some  people  have  professed  to  be  very  much 
shocked  at  this  disingenuous  trick,  as  they  call  it, 
although  perhaps  capable  of  far  more  discreditable 
ones  themselves.  It  would  be  well  if  no  worse 
could  be  said  of  modern  practical  politics. 

Franklin  held  his  clerkship  nearly  fifteen  years. 
During  this  period  he  was  also  postmaster  of  Phil 
adelphia,  and  these  two  offices,  with  the  benevolent 
enterprises  of  the  library,  the  hospital,  the  Philo 
sophical  Society,  and  the  academy  and  college, 
made  him  very  much  of  a  public  man  in  the  best 
sense  of  the  word  long  before  he  was  engaged  in 
regular  politics. 

In  the  year  1747  he  performed  an  important  pub 
lic  service  by  organizing  the  militia.  War  had  been 
declared  by  England  against  both  France  and  Spain, 
and  the  colonies  were  called  upon  to  help  the  mother 
country.  Great  difficulty  was  experienced  in  recruit 
ing  troops  in  Quaker  Pennsylvania,  although  the 
Quakers  would  indirectly  consent  to  it  when  given 
a  reasonable  excuse.  They  would  vote  money  for 
the  king's  use,  and  the  king's  officials  might  take 
the  responsibility  of  using  it  for  war  ;  they  would 
supply  provisions  to  the  army,  for  that  was  charity  ; 
and  on  one  occasion  they  voted  four  thousand 
pounds  for  the  purchase  of  beef,  pork,  flour,  wheat, 
or  other  grain  ;  and  as  powder  was  grain,  the  money 
was  used  in  supplying  it 

But  the  actual  recruiting  of  troops  was  more  diffi 
cult,  and  it  was  to  further  this  object  that  Franklin 
exerted  himself.  He  wrote  one  of  his  clever  pam 
phlets  showing  the  danger  of  a  French  invasion,  and 

198 


THE   PENNSYLVANIA   POLITICIAN 

supplied  biblical  texts  in  favor  of  defensive  war.  Then 
calling  a  mass-meeting  in  the  large  building  afterwards 
used  for  the  college,  he  urged  the  people  to  form  an 
association  for  defence.  Papers  were  distributed 
among  them,  and  in  a  few  minutes  he  had  twelve  hun 
dred  signatures.  These  citizen  soldiers  were  called 
"Associators," — a  name  used  down  to  the  time  of 
the  Revolution  to  describe  the  Pennsylvania  militia. 
In  a  few  days  he  had  enrolled  ten  thousand  volun 
teers,  which  shows  how  large  the  combatant  portion 
of  the  population  was  in  spite  of  Quaker  doctrine. 

In  1 748  he  retired  from  active  business  with  the 
purpose  of  devoting  himself  to  science.  It  was  the 
custom  at  that  time  to  give  retired  men  of  business 
the  more  important  public  offices ;  and  in  1752,  about 
the  time  of  his  discovery  of  the  nature  of  lightning, 
he  was  elected  to  the  Assembly  as  one  of  the  mem 
bers  to  represent  Philadelphia.  In  the  same  year 
he  was  also  elected  a  justice  of  the  peace  and  a 
member  of  the  City  Councils. 

At  this  time  France  and  England  were  tempo 
rarily  at  peace.  The  treaty  of  Aix-la-Chapelle  in 
1 748  had  resulted  in  a  sort  of  cessation  of  hostilities, 
which  France  was  using  to  push  more  actively  her 
advantages  on  the  Ohio  River  and  in  the  Mississippi 
Valley.  She  intended  to  get  behind  all  the  colonies 
and  occupy  the  continent  to  the  Pacific  Ocean.  The 
efforts  of  Great  Britain  to  check  these  designs,  in 
cluding  the  expeditions  of  the  youthful  Washington 
to  the  Ohio,  need  not  be  given  here.*  England 

*  Pennsylvania :  Colony  and  Commonwealth,  p.  147. 
199 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

broke  the  treaty  of  Aix-la-Chapelle,  and  what  is 
known  as  the  Seven  Years'  War  began  with  the 
memorable  defeat  of  Braddock. 

Franklin  was  sent  by  the  Pennsylvania  Assembly 
to  Braddock's  head-quarters  in  Virginia  to  give  any 
assistance  he  could  and  to  prevent  Braddock  from 
making  a  raid  into  Pennsylvania  to  procure  wagons, 
as  he  had  threatened.  The  journey  was  made  on 
horseback  in  company  with  the  governors  of  New 
York  and  Massachusetts,  and  on  the  way  Franklin 
had  an  opportunity  to  observe  the  action  of  a  small 
whirlwind,  which  he  reported  in  a  pleasant  letter  to 
Mr.  Collinson.  It  was  while  on  this  visit  that  Frank 
lin  appears  in  Thackeray's  "Virginians,"  in  which  he 
is  strangely  described  as  a  shrewd,  bright  little  man 
who  would  drink  only  water. 

He  told  Braddock  that  there  were  plenty  of 
wagons  in  Pennsylvania,  and  he  was  accordingly 
commissioned  to  procure  them.  He  returned  to 
Philadelphia,  and  within  two  weeks  had  delivered 
one  hundred  and  fifty  wagons  and  two  hundred 
and  fifty  pack-horses.  He  had  received  only  eight 
hundred  pounds  from  Braddock,  and  was  obliged 
to  advance  two  hundred  pounds  himself  and  give 
bond  to  indemnify  the  owners  of  such  horses  as 
should  be  lost  in  the  service.  Claims  to  the  amount 
of  twenty  thousand  pounds  were  afterwards  made 
against  him,  and  he  would  have  been  ruined  if  the 
government,  after  long  delay,  had  not  come  to  his 
rescue.  Such  disinterested  service  was  not  forgot 
ten,  and  his  popularity  was  greatly  increased. 

He  had  the  year  before  been  one  of  the  repre- 


THE   PENNSYLVANIA   POLITICIAN 

sentatives  of  Pennsylvania  in  the  convention  at  Al 
bany,  where  he  had  offered  a  plan  for  the  union  of 
all  the  colonies,  which  was  generally  approved,  and 
I  shall  consider  this  plan  more  fully  in  another  chap 
ter.  It  was  intended,  of  course,  primarily  to  enable 
the  colonies  to  make  more  effective  resistance  against 
the  French  and  Indians,  and  as  an  additional  assist 
ance  he  suggested  that  a  new  colony  be  planted  on 
the  Ohio  River.  The  establishment  of  this  colony 
was  a  favorite  scheme  with  him,  and  he  urged  it 
again  many  years  afterwards  while  in  England. 

As  a  member  of  the  Pennsylvania  Assembly  he 
joined  the  Quaker  majority  in  that  body  and  became 
one  of  its  leaders.  This  majority  was  in  continual 
conflict  with  the  governor  appointed  by  William 
Penn's  sons,  who  were  the  proprietors  of  the  prov 
ince.  The  government  of  the  colony  was  divided 
in  a  curious  way.  The  proprietors  had  the  right  to 
appoint  the  governor,  judges,  and  sheriffs,  or,  in 
other  words,  had  absolute  control  of  the  executive 
offices,  while  the  colonists  controlled  the  Legislature, 
or  Assembly,  as  it  was  called,  and  in  this  Assembly 
the  Quakers  exercised  the  strongest  influence. 

During  the  seventy  years  that  the  colony  had  been 
founded  the  Assembly  had  built  up  by  slow  degrees 
a  body  of  popular  rights.  It  paid  the  governor  his 
salary,  and  this  gave  it  a  vast  control  over  him ;  for 
if  he  vetoed  any  favorite  law  it  could  retaliate  by 
cutting  off  his  means  of  subsistence.  This  right  to 
withhold  the  governor's  salary  constituted  the  most 
important  principle  of  colonial  constitutional  law,  and 
by  it  not  only  Pennsylvania  but  the  other  colonies 

201 


THE   TRUE  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

maintained  what  liberty  they  possessed  and  saved 
themselves  from  the  oppression  of  royal  or  proprie 
tary  governors. 

Another  right  for  which  the  Pennsylvania  Assem 
bly  always  strenuously  contended  was  that  any  bill 
passed  by  it  for  raising  money  for  the  crown  must 
be  simply  accepted  or  rejected  by  the  governor. 
He  was  not  to  attempt  to  force  its  amendment  by 
threats  of  rejection,  or  to  interfere  in  any  way  with 
the  manner  of  raising  the  money,  and  was  to  have 
no  control  over  its  disbursement.  The  king  had  a 
right  to  ask  for  aid,  but  the  colony  reserved  the 
right  to  use  its  own  methods  in  furnishing  it. 

These  rights  the  proprietors  were  constantly  trying 
to  break  down  by  instructing  their  governors  to  as 
sent  to  money  and  other  bills  only  on  certain  condi 
tions,  among  which  was  the  stipulation  that  they 
should  not  go  into  effect  until  the  king's  pleasure 
was  known.  They  sent  out  their  governors  with 
secret  instructions,  and  compelled  them  to  give 
bonds  for  their  faithful  performance.  When  the 
governors  declined  to  reveal  these  instructions,  the 
Assembly  thought  it  had  another  grievance,  for  it 
had  always  refused  to  be  governed  in  this  manner  ; 
and  was  now  more  determined  than  ever  to  main 
tain  this  point  because  several  bills  had  been  intro 
duced  in  Parliament  for  the  purpose  of  making  royal 
instructions  to  governors  binding  on  all  the  colonial 
assemblies  without  regard  to  their  charters  or  con 
stitutions. 

These  were  all  very  serious  designs  on  liberty,  and 
the  proprietors  took  advantage  of  the  war  necessi- 

202 


THE   PENNSYLVANIA   POLITICIAN 

ties  and  Braddock's  defeat  to  carry  them  out  in  the 
most  extreme  form.  The  home  government  was  call 
ing  on  all  the  colonies  for  war  supplies,  and  Pennsyl 
vania  must  comply  not  only  to  secure  her  own  safety 
but  under  fear  of  displeasing  the  Parliament  and 
king.  If  under  such  pressure  she  could  be  induced 
to  pass  some  of  the  supply  bills  at  the  dictation  of 
the  governor,  or  with  an  admission  of  the  validity  of 
his  secret  instructions,  a  precedent  would  be  estab 
lished  and  the  proprietary  hold  on  the  province 
greatly  strengthened. 

The  Quakers,  especially  those  comprising  the  ma 
jority  in  the  Assembly,  were  not  at  heart  opposed 
to  war  or  to  granting  war  supplies.  As  they  ex 
pressed  it  in  the  preamble  to  one  of  their  laws,  they 
had  no  objection  to  others  bearing  arms,  but  were 
themselves  principled  against  it.  If  the  others 
wished  to  fight,  or  if  it  was  necessary  for  the  prov 
ince  to  fight,  they,  as  the  governing  body,  would 
furnish  the  means.  Franklin  relates  how,  when  he 
was  organizing  the  Associators,  it  was  proposed  in 
the  Union  Fire  Company  that  sixty  pounds  should 
be  expended  in  buying  tickets  in  a  lottery,  the  ob 
ject  of  which  was  to  raise  money  for  the  purchase  of 
cannon.  There  were  twenty- two  Quakers  in  the  fire 
company  and  eight  others  ;  but  the  twenty-two,  by 
purposely  absenting  themselves,  allowed  the  propo 
sition  to  be  carried. 

The  Quaker  Assembly  voted  money  for  war  sup 
plies  as  liberally  and  as  loyally  as  the  Assembly  of 
any  other  colony  ;  but  at  every  step  it  was  met  by 
the  designs  of  the  governor  to  force  upon  it  those 

203 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

conditions  which  would  be  equivalent  to  a  surrender 
of  the  liberties  of  the  colony.  Thus,  in  1754  it  voted 
a  war  supply  of  twenty  thousand  pounds,  which  was 
the  same  amount  as  Virginia,  the  most  active  of  the 
colonies  against  the  French,  had  just  subscribed,  and 
was  much  more  than  other  colonies  gave.  New 
York  gave  only  five  thousand  pounds,  Maryland  six 
thousand  pounds,  and  New  Jersey  nothing.  But  the 
governor  refused  his  assent  to  the  bill  unless  a  clause 
was  inserted  suspending  it  until  the  approval  of  the 
king  had  been  obtained,  and  this  condition  the 
Assembly  felt  bound  to  reject. 

During  the  whole  seven  years  of  the  war  these  con 
tests  with  the  governor  continued  ;  and  the  members 
of  the  Assembly,  to  show  their  zeal  for  the  war,  were 
obliged  at  times  to  raise  the  money  on  their  own 
credit  without  submitting  their  bill  to  the  governor 
for  his  approval.  In  these  struggles  Franklin  bore  a 
prominent  part,  drafting  the  replies  which  the  Assem 
bly  made  to  the  governor's  messages,  and  acquiring 
a  most  thorough  knowledge  of  all  the  principles  of 
colonial  liberty.  At  the  same  time  he  continued  to  en 
joy  jovial  personal  relations  with  the  governors  whom 
he  resisted  so  vigorously  in  the  Assembly,  and  was 
often  invited  to  dine  with  them,  when  they  would 
joke  with  him  about  his  support  of  the  Quakers. 

The  disputes  were  increased  about  the  time  of 
Brad  dock's  defeat  by  a  new  subject  of  controversy. 
As  the  Assembly  was  passing  bills  for  war  supplies 
which  had  to  be  raised  by  taxation,  it  was  thought 
to  be  no  more  than  right  that  the  proprietary  estates 
should  also  bear  their  share  of  the  tax.  The  pro- 

204 


THE   PENNSYLVANIA   POLITICIAN 

prietors  owned  vast  tracts  of  land  which  they  had 
not  yet  sold  to  the  people,  and  as  the  war  was  being 
waged  for  the  defence  of  these  as  well  as  all  the 
other  property  of  the  country,  the  Assembly  and  the 
people  in  general  were  naturally  very  indignant  when 
the  governor  refused  his  consent  to  any  bill  which 
did  not  expressly  exempt  these  lands  from  taxation. 
The  amount  assessed  on  the  proprietary  land  was 
trifling, — only  five  hundred  pounds  ;  but  both  parties 
felt  that  they  were  contending  for  a  principle,  and 
when  some  gentlemen  offered  to  pay  the  whole 
amount  in  order  to  stop  the  dispute,  it  was  rejected. 

The  proprietors,  through  the  governor,  offered  a 
sort  of  indirect  bribe  in  the  form  of  large  gifts  of 
land, — a  thousand  acres  to  every  colonel,  five  hun 
dred  to  every  captain,  and  so  on  down  to  two  hun 
dred  to  each  private, — which  seemed  very  liberal, 
and  was  an  attempt  to  put  the  Assembly  in  an  un 
patriotic  position  if  it  should  refuse  to  exempt  the 
estates  after  such  a  generous  offer.     But  the  Assem 
bly  was  unmoved,  and  declined   to  vote  any  more 
money  for  the  purposes  of  the  war,  if  it  involved  a 
sacrifice  of  the  liberties  of  the  people  or  enabled 
the  proprietors  to  escape  taxation.      "Those,"  saidf 
Franklin,  "who  would  give  up  essential  liberty  for' 
the  sake  of  a  little  temporary  safety,  deserve  neither! 
liberty  nor  safety." 

But  the  proprietors  were  determined  to  carry  the 
point  of  exemption  of  their  estates,  and  as  a  clamor 
was  being  raised  against  them  in  England  for  defeat 
ing,  through  their  governor,  the  efforts  of  the  Assem 
bly  to  raise  money  for  the  war,  they  sent  over  word 

205 


THE   TRUE  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

that  they  would  subscribe  five  thousand  pounds  for 
the  protection  of  the  colony.  Such  munificence  took 
the  Assembly  by  surprise,  and  an  appropriation  bill 
was  passed  without  taxing  the  proprietary  estates. 
But  popular  resentment  against  the  proprietors  was 
raised  to  a  high  pitch  when  it  was  discovered  that 
the  five  thousand  pounds  was  to  be  collected  out  of 
the  arrears  of  quit-rents  due  the  proprietors.  It  was 
merely  a  clever  trick  on  their  part  to  saddle  their 
bad  debts  on  the  province,  have  their  estates  ex 
empted  from  taxation,  and  at  the  same  time  give 
themselves  a  reputation  for  generosity. 

The  defeat  of  Braddock  in  July,  1755,  was  followed 
in  September  and  October  by  a  terrible  invasion  of 
the  Indians,  who  massacred  the  farmers  almost  as 
far  east  as  Philadelphia.  Evidently  something  more 
was  necessary  to  protect  the  province  than  the  mere 
loose  organization  of  the  Associators,  and  a  militia 
law  drafted  by  Franklin  was  passed  by  the  Quaker 
Assembly.  The  law  had  a  long  preamble  attached, 
which  he  had  prepared  with  great  ingenuity  to  sat 
isfy  Quaker  scruples.  It  was  made  up  largely  of 
previous  Quaker  utterances  on  war,  and  declared 
that  while  it  would  be  persecution,  and  therefore  un 
lawful  in  Pennsylvania,  to  compel  Quakers  to  bear 
arms  against  their  consciences,  so  it  would  be  wrong 
to  prohibit  from  engaging  in  war  those  who  thought 
it  their  duty.  The  Quaker  Assembly,  as  represent 
ing  all  the  people  of  the  province,  would  accordingly 
furnish  to  those  who  wanted  to  fight  the  legal  means 
for  carrying  out  their  wish  ;  and  the  law  then  went 
on  to  show  how  they  should  be  organized  as  soldiers. 

206 


THE   PENNSYLVANIA   POLITICIAN 

In  his  Gazette  Franklin  published  a  Dialogue 
written  by  himself,  which  was  intended  to  answer 
criticisms  on  the  law  and  especially  the  objections 
of  those  who  were  disgusted  because  the  new  law 
exempted  the  Quakers.  Why,  it  was  asked,  should 
the  combatant  portion  of  the  people  fight  for  the  lives 
and  property  of  men  who  are  too  cowardly  to  fight 
for  themselves  ?  These  objectors  required  as  deli 
cate  handling  as  the  Quakers,  and  Franklin  ap 
proached  them  with  his  usual  skill. 

"  Z.  For  my  part  I  am  no  coward,  but  hang  me  if  I  will  fight  to 
save  the  Quakers. 

"  X.  That  is  to  say,  you  will  not  pump  ship,  because  it  will  save 
the  rats  as  well  as  yourself." 

As  a  consequence  of  his  success  in  writing  in 
favor  of  war,  the  philosopher,  electrician,  and  editor 
found  himself  elected  colonel  of  the  men  he  had 
persuaded,  and  was  compelled  to  lead  about  five 
hundred  of  them  to  the  Lehigh  Valley,  where  the 
German  village  of  Gnadenhutten  had  been  burnt 
and  its  inhabitants  massacred.  He  had  no  taste 
for  such  business,  and  would  have  avoided  it  if  he 
could  ;  for  he  never  used  a  gun  even  for  amuse 
ment,  and  would  not  keep  a  weapon  of  any  kind  in 
his  house.  But  the  province  with  its  peace-loving 
Quakers  and  Germans  had  never  before  experienced 
actual  war,  nor  even  difficulties  with  the  Indians, 
and  Franklin  was  as  much  a  military  man  as  any 
body. 

So  the  philosopher  of  nearly  fifty  years,  famous 
the  world  over  for  his  discoveries  in  electricity  and 

207 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

his  "  Poor  Richard's  Almanac,"  set  forth  in  Decem 
ber,  slept  on  the  ground  or  in  barns,  arranged  the 
order  of  scouting  parties,  and  regulated  the  serving 
of  grog  to  his  men.  He  built  a  line  of  small  forts 
in  the  Lehigh  Valley,  and  during  the  two  months 
that  he  was  there  no  doubt  checked  the  Indians 
who  were  watching  him  all  the  time  from  the  hill 
tops,  and  who  went  no  farther  than  to  kill  ten  un 
fortunate  farmers.  He  had  no  actual  battle  with 
them,  and  was  perhaps  fortunate  in  escaping  a  sur 
prise  ;  but  he  was  very  wily  in  his  movements,  and 
in  his  shrewd  common-sense  way  understood  Indian 
tactics.  He  has  left  us  a  description  in  one  of  his 
letters  how  a  force  like  his  should,  before  stopping 
for  the  night,  make  a  circuit  backward  and  camp 
near  their  trail,  setting  a  guard  to  watch  the  trail  so 
that  any  Indians  following  it  could  be  seen  long 
before  they  reached  the  camp. 

He,  indeed,  conducted  his  expedition  in  the  most 
thorough  and  systematic  manner,  marching  his  men 
in  perfect  order  with  a  semicircle  of  scouts  in  front, 
an  advance-guard,  then  the  main  body,  with  scouts 
on  each  flank  and  spies  on  every  hill,  followed  by  a 
watchful  rear-guard.  He  observed  all  the  natural 
objects  with  his  usual  keen  interest,  noting  the  exact 
number  of  minutes  required  by  his  men  to  fell  a  tree 
for  the  palisaded  forts  he  was  building.  After  two 
months  of  roughing  it  he  could  not  sleep  in  a  bed 
on  his  return  to  Bethlehem.  "It  was  so  different," 
he  says,  "  from  my  hard  lodging  on  the  floor  of  a 
hut  at  Gnadenhutten  with  only  a  blanket  or  two." 

Very  characteristic  of  him  also  was  the  suggestion 
208 


THE   PENNSYLVANIA   POLITICIAN 

he  made  to  his  chaplain  when  the  good  man  found 
it  difficult  to  get  the  soldiers  to  attend  prayers.  "  It 
is  perhaps  beneath  the  dignity  of  your  profession," 
said  Franklin,  "  to  act  as  steward  of  the  rum  ;  but 
if  you  were  only  to  distribute  it  after  prayers  you 
would  have  them  all  about  you."  The  chaplain 
thought  well  of  it,  and  "never,"  Franklin  tells  us, 
"were  prayers  more  generally  or  more  punctually 
attended." 

On  the  return  of  the  troops  to  Philadelphia  after 
their  two  months'  campaign  they  had  a  grand  parade 
and  review,  saluting  the  houses  of  all  their  officers 
with  discharges  of  cannon  and  small-arms  ;  and  the 
salute  given  before  the  door  of  their  philosopher 
colonel  broke  several  of  the  glasses  of  his  electrical 
apparatus. 

The  next  year,  1756,  brought  some  relief  to  the 
colonists  by  Armstrong's  successful  expedition 
against  the  Indians  at  Kittanning.  But  the  year 
1757  was  more  gloomy  than  ever.  Nothing  was 
wanting  but  a  few  more  soldiers  to  enable  the 
French  to  press  on  down  the  Mississippi  and  secure 
their  line  to  New  Orleans,  or  to  fall  upon  the  rear 
of  the  colonies  and  conquer  them.  The  proprietors 
of  Pennsylvania  took  advantage  of  the  situation  to 
force  the  Assembly  to  abandon  all  its  most  cher 
ished  rights.  The  new  governor  came  out  with  full 
instructions  to  assent  to  no  tax  bill  unless  it  ex 
empted  the  proprietary  estates,  to  have  the  proprie 
tary  quit-rents  paid  in  sterling  instead  of  Pennsyl 
vania  currency,  and  to  assent  to  no  money  bill  unless 
the  money  to  be  raised  was  appropriated  for  some 
14  209 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

particular  object  or  was  to  be  at  the  disposal  of  the 
governor  and  Assembly  jointly. 

Their  attack  on  the  liberties  of  the  province  was 
well  timed ;  for,  the  English  forces  having  been 
everywhere  defeated,  the  Assembly  felt  that  it  must 
assist  in  the  prosecution  of  the  war  at  all  hazards. 
It  therefore  resolved  to  waive  its  rights  for  the 
present,  and  passed  a  bill  for  raising  thirty  thousand 
pounds  to  be  expended  under  the  joint  supervision 
of  the  Assembly  and  the  governor.  So  the  pro 
prietors  gained  one  of  their  points,  and  they  soon 
gained  another.  The  Assembly  was  before  long 
obliged  to  raise  more  money,  and  voted  one  hun 
dred  thousand  pounds,  the  largest  single  appropria 
tion  ever  made.  It  was  to  be  raised  by  a  general 
tax,  and  the  tax  was  to  include  the  proprietary 
estates.  The  governor  objected,  and  the  Assembly, 
influenced  by  the  terrible  necessities  of  the  war, 
yielded  and  passed  the  bill  in  February,  1757,  with 
out  taxing  the  estates. 

But  it  was  determined  to  carry  on  its  contest  with 
the  governor  in  another  way,  and  resolved  to  send 
two  commissioners  to  England  to  lay  before  the 
king  and  Privy  Council  the  conduct  of  the  proprie-^ 
tors.  The  first  avowed  object  of  the  commissioners 
was  to  secure  the  taxing  of  the  proprietary  estates, 
and  the  second  was  to  suggest  that  the  proprietor 
ship  be  abolished  and  the  province  taken  under  the 
direct  rule  of  the  crown.  Franklin  and  Isaac  Nor- 
ris,  the  Speaker  of  the  Assembly,  were  appointed 
commissioners,  but  Norris  being  detained  by  ill 
health,  Franklin  started  alone. 

210 


THE   PENNSYLVANIA   POLITICIAN 

He  set  forth  as  a  sort  of  minister  plenipotentiary 
to  London,  where  he  had  at  one  time  worked  as 
a  journeyman  printer.  He  had  left  London  an 
obscure,  impoverished  boy ;  he  was  returning  as  a 
famous  man  of  science,  retired  from  worldly  busi 
ness  on  an  assured  income.  He  remained  in  Eng 
land  for  five  years,  and  so  full  of  pleasure,  interest 
ing  occupation,  and  fame  were  those  years  that  it 
is  remarkable  that  he  was  willing  to  come  back  to 
Pennsylvania. 

He  secured  lodgings  for  himself  and  his  son  Wil 
liam  at  Mrs.  Stevenson's,  No.  7  Craven  Street.  Here 
he  lived  all  of  the  five  years  and  also  during  his 
subsequent  ten  years'  residence  in  London.  He 
had  been  recommended  to  her  house  by  some 
Pennsylvania  friends  who  had  boarded  there  ;  but 
he  soon  ceased  to  be  a  mere  lodger,  and  No.  7 
Craven  Street  became  his  second  home.  He  and 
Mrs.  Stevenson  became  firm  friends,  and  for  her 
daughter  Mary  he  formed  a  strong  attachment,  which 
continued  all  his  life.  His  letters  to  her  are 
among  the  most  beautiful  ever  written  by  him,  and 
he  encouraged  her  to  study  science.  "  In  all  that 
time,"  he  once  wrote  to  her,  referring  to  the  happy 
years  he  had  spent  at  her  mother's  house,  "we 
never  had  among  us  the  smallest  misunderstanding  ; 
our  friendship  has  been  all  clear  sunshine,  without 
the  least  cloud  in  its  hemisphere." 

Mrs.  Stevenson  took  care  of  the  small  every-day 
affairs  of  his  life,  advised  as  to  the  presents  he  sent 
home  to  his  wife,  assisted  in  buying  them,  and  when 
a  child  of  one  of  his  poor  English  relatives  needed 

211 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

assistance,  she  took  it  into  her  house  and  cared  for  it 
with  almost  as  tender  an  interest  as  if  she  had  been 
its  mother.  Many  years  afterwards,  in  a  letter  to 
her  written  while  he  was  in  France,  Franklin  re 
grets  "  the  want  of  that  order  and  economy  in  my 
family  which  reigned  in  it  when  under  your  prudent 
direction."  * 

The  familiar,  pleasant  life  he  led  with  her  family 
is  shown  in  a  little  essay  written  for  their  amuse 
ment,  called  "The  Craven  Street  Gazette."  It  is  a 
burlesque  on  the  pompous  court  news  of  the  Eng 
lish  journals.  Mrs.  Stevenson  figures  as  the  queen 
and  the  rest  of  the  family  and  their  friends  as  cour 
tiers  and  members  of  the  nobility,  and  we  get  in  this 
way  pleasant  glimpses  of  each  one's  peculiarities  and 
habits,  the  way  they  lived,  and  their  jokes  on  one 
another. 

He  had  an  excellent  electrical  machine  and  other 
apparatus  for  experiments  in  her  house,  and  went  on 
with  the  researches  which  so  fascinated  him  in  much 
the  same  way  as  he  had  done  at  home.  It  was  at 
No.  7  Craven  Street  that  he  planned  his  musical 
instrument,  the  armonica,  already  described,  and 
exhibited  it  to  his  friends  who  came  to  see  his 
electrical  experiments.  He  quickly  became  a  mem 
ber  of  all  the  learned  societies,  was  given  the  degree 
of  doctor  of  laws  by  the  universities  of  St.  Andrew's, 
Edinburgh,  and  Oxford,  and  soon  knew  all  the  celeb 
rities  in  England.  But  he  does  not  appear  to  have 
seen  much  of  that  burly  and  boisterous  literary 


*  Bigelow's  Works  of  Franklin,  vol.  vi.  p.  300. 
212 


THE   PENNSYLVANIA   POLITICIAN 

chieftain,  Dr.  Johnson.  This  was  unfortunate,  for 
Franklin's  description  of  him  would  have  been  in 
valuable. 

Peter  Collinson,  to  whom  his  letters  on  electricity 
had  been  sent,  of  course  welcomed  him.  He  be 
came  intimate  with  Dr.  Fothergill,  the  fashionable 
physician  of  London,  who  had  assisted  to  make  his 
electrical  discoveries  known.  This  was  another  of 
his  life-long  friendships  :  the  two  were  always  in 
perfect  sympathy,  investigating  with  the  enthusiasm 
of  old  cronies  everything  of  philosophic  and  human 
interest. 

Priestley,  the  discoverer  of  oxygen  and  one  of  the 
foremost  men  of  science  of  that  time,  became  an 
other  bosom  friend,  and  Franklin  furnished  him  the 
material  for  his  "  History  of  Electricity."  William 
Strahan,  the  prosperous  publisher  and  friend  of  Dr. 
Johnson,  also  conceived  a  great  liking  for  the  Penn 
sylvania  agent.  Strahan  afterwards  became  a  mem 
ber  of  Parliament,  and  was  fond  of  saying  to  Frank 
lin  that  they  both  had  started  life  as  printers,  but  no 
two  printers  had  ever  risen  so  high.  He  was  a  whole- 
souled,  jovial  man,  wanted  his  son  to  marry  Frank 
lin's  daughter,  and  wanted  Mrs.  Franklin  to  come 
over  to  England  and  settle  there  with  her  husband, 
who,  he  said,  must  never  go  back  to  America.  He 
used  to  write  letters  to  Mrs.  Franklin  trying  to  per 
suade  her  to  overcome  her  aversion  to  the  sea,  and 
he  made  bets  with  Franklin  that  his  persuasions 
would  succeed. 

We  need  not  wonder  that  Franklin  spent  five 
years  on  his  mission,  when  he  was  so  comfortably 

213 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

settled  with  his  own  servant  in  addition  to  those 
of  Mrs.  Stevenson,  his  chariot  to  drive  in  like  an 
ambassador,  and  his  son  William  studying  law  at 
the  inns  of  court.  During  his  stay,  and  about  the 
year  1760,  William  presented  him  with  an  illegiti 
mate  grandson,  William  Temple  Franklin.  This 
boy  was  brought  up  exclusively  by  his  grandfather, 
and  scarcely  knew  his  father,  who  soon  married  a 
young  lady  from  the  West  Indies.  In  his  infancy 
Temple  was  not  an  inmate  of  the  Craven  Street 
house,  but  he  lived  there  afterwards  during  his  grand 
father's  second  mission  to  England,  and  accompanied 
him  to  France. 

The  birth  of  Temple  and  his  parentage  were  prob 
ably  not  generally  known  among  Franklin's  English 
friends  during  this  first  mission.  It  has  been  said 
also  that  William's  illegitimacy  was  not  known  in 
London,  but  this  is  unlikely.  It  did  not,  however, 
interfere  with  the  young  man's  advancement ;  for  in 
1762,  just  before  Franklin  returned  to  America,  Wil 
liam  was  appointed  by  the  crown  governor  of  New 
Jersey.  This  honor,  it  is  said,  was  entirely  unso 
licited  by  either  father  or  son,  and  the  explanation 
usually  given  is  that  it  was  intended  to  attach  the 
father  more  securely  to  the  royal  interest  in  the  dis 
putes  which  were  threatening  between  the  colonies 
and  the  mother  country. 

William  and  his  father  were  on  very  good  terms 
at  this  time.  Every  summer  they  took  a  little  tour 
together,  and  on  one  occasion  travelled  in  Holland. 
On  a  visit  they  made  to  the  University  of  Cambridge 
they  were  entertained  by  the  heads  of  colleges,  the 

214 


THE   PENNSYLVANIA   POLITICIAN 

chancellor,  and  the  professors  in  the  most  distin 
guished  manner,  discussed  new  points  of  science 
with  them,  and  with  Professor  Hadley  experimented 
on  what  was  then  a  great  wonder,  the  production  of 
cold  by  evaporation.  They  wandered  also  to  the 
old  village  of  Ecton,  where  the  Franklins  had  lived 
poor  and  humble  for  countless  generations,  saw 
many  of  the  old  people,  and  copied  inscriptions  on 
tombstones  and  parish  registers.  But  Scotland  they 
enjoyed  most  of  all.  There  they  met  Lord  Kames, 
the  author  of  the  "Elements  of  Criticism,"  and  the 
historians  Hume  and  Robertson.  It  was  an  atmos 
phere  of  philosophy  and  intelligence  which  Franklin 
thoroughly  enjoyed.  "The  time  we  spent  there," 
he  wrote  to  Lord  Kames,  "was  six  weeks  of  the 
densest  happiness  I  have  met  with  in  any  part  of  my 
life." 

During  his  stay  in  England  the  war  against  the 
French  and  Indians,  which  was  raging  when  he  left 
America,  came  to  a  close,  and  Quebec  and  Canada 
were  surrendered.  It  became  a  question  in  settling 
with  France  whether  it  would  be  most  advanta 
geous  for  Great  Britain  to  retain  Canada  or  the  Gua 
deloupe  sugar  islands,  and  there  were  advocates  on 
both  sides.  Franklin  published  an  admirable  argu 
ment  in  favor  of  retaining  Canada,  without  which 
the  American  colonies  would  never  be  secure  from 
the  Indians  instigated  by  the  French,  and  the  acqui 
sition  of  Canada  would  also  tend  to  a  grander  devel 
opment  of  the  British  empire.  It  was  an  able  ap 
peal,  but  there  is  no  evidence  that  it  alone  influenced 
the  final  decision  of  the  ministry,  as  has  been  claimed, 

215 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

any  more  than  there  is  evidence  that  Franklin  sug 
gested  the  policy  of  William  Pitt  which  had  brought 
the  war  to  a  successful  close.  There  were  many  ad 
vocates  of  these  opinions  and  suggestions,  and  Frank 
lin  was  merely  one  of  them,  though  unquestionably 
an  able  one. 

He  also  published  his  essay  on  the  "  Peopling  of 
Countries"  and  an  article  in  favor  of  the  vigorous 
prosecution  of  the  war  in  Europe.  These,  with  his 
pleasures  and  experiments  in  science,  occupied 
most  of  the  five  years,  and  the  work  of  his  mission, 
though  well  done,  was  by  no  means  absorbing. 

When  he  arrived,  in  July,  1757,  he  had,  under 
the  advice  of  Dr.  Fothergill,  first  sought  redress 
from  the  proprietors  themselves  before  appealing  to 
the  government ;  but  meeting  with  no  success,  he 
tried  the  members  of  the  Privy  Council,  and  first  of 
all  William  Pitt,  the  great  minister  who  was  then 
conducting  the  war  against  France  and  recreating 
England.  But  he  could  not  even  secure  an  inter 
view  with  that  busy  minister,  which  is  a  commen 
tary  on  the  extravagant  claims  of  those  who  say 
that  Franklin  suggested  Pitt's  policy. 

Two  years  and  more  passed  without  his  being 
able  to  accomplish  anything  except  enlighten  the 
general  public  concerning  the  facts  of  the  situation. 
An  article  appeared  in  the  General  Advertiser  abusing 
the  Pennsylvania  Assembly,  and  his  son  William  re 
plied  to  it.  The  reply  being  extensively  copied  by 
other  newspapers,  the  son  was  set  to  work  on  a  book 
now  known  as  the  "  Historical  Review  of  Pennsyl 
vania,"  which  went  over  the  whole  ground  of  the 

216 


THE   PENNSYLVANIA   POLITICIAN 

quarrels  of  the  Assembly  with  the  proprietors  and 
their  deputy  governors.  It  was  circulated  quite 
widely,  some  copies  being  sold  and  others  distrib 
uted  free  to  important  persons.  But  it  is  doubtful 
whether  it  had  very  much  influence,  for  it  was  an 
extremely  dull  book,  and  valuable  only  for  its  quota 
tions  from  the  messages  of  the  governors  and  the 
replies  of  the  Assembly. 

His  opportunity  to  accomplish  the  main  object  of 
his  mission  came  at  last  by  accident  The  Assembly 
in  Pennsylvania  were  gradually  starving  the  governor 
into  submission  by  withholding  his  salary,  and  under 
pressure  for  want  of  money,  he  gave  his  assent  to  a 
bill  taxing  the  proprietary  estates.  The  bill  being 
sent  to  England,  the  proprietors  opposed  it  before 
the  Privy  Council  as  hostile  to  their  rights,  and  ob 
tained  a  decision  in  their  favor  in  spite  of  the  ar 
guments  of  Franklin  and  his  lawyers.  But  Franklin 
secured  a  reconsideration,  and  Lord  Mansfield  asked 
him  if  he  really  thought  that  no  injury  would  be 
done  the  proprietary  estates  by  the  Assembly,  for 
the  proprietors  had  represented  that  the  colonists 
intended  to  tax  them  out  of  existence.  Franklin 
assured  him  that  no  injury  would  be  done,  and  he 
was  immediately  asked  if  he  would  enter  into  an 
engagement  to  assure  that  point.  On  his  agreeing 
to  do  this,  the  papers  were  drawn,  the  Assembly's 
bill  taxing  the  estates  was  approved  by  the  crown, 
and  from  that  time  the  assaults  of  the  proprietors 
on  the  liberties  of  the  colony  were  decisively 
checked. 

Franklin  was  now  most  furiously  attacked  and 
217 


THE   TRUE  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

hated  by  the  proprietary  party  in  Pennsylvania,  but 
from  the  majority  of  the  people,  led  by  the  Quakers, 
he  received  increased  approbation  and  applause,  and 
his  willingness  to  risk  his  own  personal  engagement, 
as  in  the  affair  with  Braddock,  was  regarded  as  an 
evidence  of  the  highest  public  spirit. 

He  remained  two  years  longer  in  England  on  one 
pretext  or  another,  and  no  doubt  excuses  for  con 
tinuing  such  a  delightful  life  readily  suggested  them 
selves.  He  returned  in  the  early  autumn  of  1762, 
receiving  from  the  Assembly  three  thousand  pounds 
for  his  services,  and  during  the  five  years  of  his 
absence  he  had  been  annually  elected  to  that  body. 
For  a  few  months  he  enjoyed  comparative  quiet,  but 
the  next  year  he  was  again  in  the  turmoil  of  a  most 
bitter  political  contest. 

The  war  with  France  was  over,  and  Canada  and 
the  Ohio  Valley  had  been  ceded  to  the  English  by 
the  treaty  of  Paris,  signed  in  February,  1763.  But 
the  Indians,  having  lost  their  French  friends,  deter 
mined  to  destroy  the  English,  and,  inspired  by  the 
genius  of  Pontiac,  they  took  fort  after  fort  and, 
rushing  upon  the  whole  colonial  frontier  of  Pennsyl 
vania,  swept  the  people  eastward  to  the  Delaware 
with  even  worse  devastation  and  slaughter  than  they 
had  inflicted  after  Braddock's  defeat.  I  cannot  give 
here  the  full  details  of  this  war,*  and  must  confine 
myself  to  one  phase  of  it  with  which  Franklin  was 
particularly  concerned. 

The  Scotch-Irish  who  occupied  the  frontier  coun- 


*  Pennsylvania  :  Colony  and  Commonwealth,  p.  221. 
218 


THE   PENNSYLVANIA   POLITICIAN 

ties  of  Pennsylvania  suffered  most  severely  from  these 
Indian  raids,  and  believed  that  the  proprietary  and 
Quaker  government  at  Philadelphia  neglected  the 
defence  of  the  province.  Their  resentment  was 
strongest  against  the  Quakers.  They  held  the 
Quaker  religion  in  great  contempt  and  viewed  with 
scorn  the  attempts  of  the  Quakers  to  pacify  the  In 
dians  and  befriend  those  of  them  who  were  willing 
to  give  up  the  war-path  and  adopt  the  white  man's 
mode  of  life. 

Some  friendly  Indians,  descendants  of  the  tribes 
that  had  welcomed  William  Penn,  were  living  at 
Conestoga,  near  Lancaster,  in  a  degenerate  condi 
tion,  having  given  up  both  war  and  hunting,  and 
following  the  occupations  of  basket-  and  broom- 
making.  They  were  the  wards  of  the  proprietary 
government,  and  were  given  presents  and  supplies 
from  time  to  time.  There  were  also  at  Bethlehem 
some  other  friendly  Indians  who  had  been  converted 
to  Christianity  by  the  Moravians. 

The  Scotch-Irish  believed  that  all  of  these  so- 
called  friendly  Indians  were  in  league  with  the  hos 
tile  tribes,  furnished  them  with  information,  and  even 
participated  in  their  murders.  They  asked  the  gov 
ernor  to  remove  them,  and  assured  him  that  their 
removal  would  secure  the  safety  of  the  frontier. 
Nothing  being  done  by  the  governor,  a  party  of 
Scotch-Irish  rangers  started  to  destroy  the  Moravian 
Indians,  but  were  prevented  by  a  rain-storm.  The 
governor  afterwards,  through  commissioners,  inves 
tigated  these  Moravian  Indians,  and  finding  reason 
to  suspect  them,  they  were  all  brought  down  to  Phila- 

219 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

delphia  and  quartered  in  barracks.  But  the  Cones- 
toga  Indians  were  attacked  by  a  party  of  fifty-seven 
Scotch-Irish,  afterwards  known  as  the  "Paxton 
Boys,"  who,  finding  only  six  of  them  in  the  vil 
lage, — three  men,  two  women,  and  a  boy, — massa 
cred  them  all,  mangled  their  bodies,  and  burnt  their 
property.  The  remaining  fourteen  of  the  tribe  were 
collected  by  the  sheriff  and  put  for  protection  in  the 
Lancaster  jail.  The  Paxtons  hearing  of  it,  immedi 
ately  attacked  the  jail  and  cut  the  Indians  to  pieces 
with  hatchets. 

We  have  grown  so  accustomed  to  lynch  law  that 
this  slaughter  of  the  Conestogas  would  not  now  cause 
much  surprise,  especially  in  some  parts  of  the  coun 
try  ;  but  it  was  a  new  thing  to  the  colonists,  who  in 
many  respects  were  more  orderly  than  are  their  de 
scendants,  and  a  large  part  of  the  community  were 
shocked,  disgusted,  and  indignant.  Franklin  wrote 
a  pamphlet  which  had  a  wide  circulation  and  assailed 
the  Scotch-Irish  as  inhuman,  brutal  cowards,  worse 
than  Arabs  and  Turks  ;  fifty-seven  of  them,  armed 
with  rifles,  knives,  and  hatchets,  had  actually  suc 
ceeded,  he  said,  in  killing  three  old  men,  two  women, 
and  a  boy. 

The  Paxton  lynchers,  however,  were  fully  sup 
ported  by  the  people  of  the  frontier.  A  large  body 
of  frontiersmen  marched  on  Philadelphia  with  the 
full  intention  of  revolutionizing  the  Quaker  govern 
ment,  and  they  would  have  succeeded  but  for  the 
unusual  preparations  for  defence.  They  were 
finally,  with  some  difficulty,  persuaded  to  return 
without  using  their  rifles. 

220 


THE   PENNSYLVANIA   POLITICIAN 

The  governor  was  powerless  to  secure  even  the  ar 
rest  of  the  men  who  had  murdered  the  Indians  in  the 
jail,  and  the  disorder  was  so  flagrant  and  the  weak 
ness  of  the  executive  branch  of  the  government  so 
apparent  that  the  Quakers  and  a  majority  of  the  peo 
ple  thought  there  was  now  good  reason  for  openly 
petitioning  the  crown  to  abolish  the  proprietorship. 
While  in  England,  Franklin  had  been  advised  not 
to  raise  this  question,  and  he  had  accordingly  con 
fined  his  efforts  to  taxing  the  proprietary  estates. 

The  arrangement  he  had  made  provided  that  the 
estates  should  be  fairly  taxed,  but  the  governor  and 
the  Assembly  differed  in  opinion  as  to  what  was  fair. 
The  governor  claimed  that  the  best  wild  lands  of  the 
proprietors  should  be  taxed  at  the  rate  paid  by  the 
people  for  their  worst,  and  he  tried  the  old  tactics 
of  forcing  this  point  by  delaying  a  supply  bill  in 
tended  to  defend  the  province  against  Pontiac  and 
his  Indians.  The  Assembly  passed  the  bill  to  suit 
him,  but  immediately  raised  the  question  of  the 
abolition  of  the  proprietorship.  Twenty-five  reso 
lutions  were  passed  most  abusive  of  the  proprietors, 
and  the  Assembly  then  adjourned  to  let  the  people 
decide  by  a  general  election  whether  a  petition 
should  be  sent  to  the  king  asking  for  direct  royal 
government. 

A  most  exciting  political  campaign  followed  in 
which  Franklin  took  the  side  of  the  majority  in  favor 
of  a  petition,  and  wrote  several  of  his  most  brilliant 
pamphlets.  He  particularly  assailed  Provost  Smith, 
who,  in  a  preface  to  a  printed  speech  by  John  Dick 
inson  defending  the  proprietary  government,  had 

221 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

eulogized  William  Penn  in  one  of  those  laudatory 
epitaphs  which  were  the  fashion  of  the  day  : 

"  Utterly  to  confound  the  assembly,  and  show  the  excellence  of 
proprietary  government,  the  Prefacer  has  extracted  from  their  own 
votes  the  praises  they  have  from  time  to  time  bestowed  on  the  first 
proprietor,  in  their  addresses  to  his  son.  And,  though  addresses  are 
not  generally  the  best  repositories  of  historical  truth,  we  must  not  in 
this  instance  deny  their  authority. 

"  That  these  encomiums  on  the  father,  though  sincere,  have  oc 
curred  so  frequently,  was  owing,  however,  to  two  causes  :  first,  a 
vain  hope  the  assemblies  entertained,  that  the  father's  example,  and 
the  honors  done  his  character,  might  influence  the  conduct  of  the 
sons ;  secondly,  for  that,  in  attempting  to  compliment  the  sons  upon 
their  own  merits,  there  was  always  found  an  extreme  scarcity  of 
matter.  Hence,  the  father,  the  honored  and  honorable  father,  was 
so  often  repeated,  that  the  sons  themselves  grew  sick  of  it,  and  have 
been  heard  to  say  to  each  other  with  disgust,  when  told  that  A,  B, 
and  C,  were  come  to  wait  upon  them  with  addresses  on  some  public 
occasion,  '  Then  I  suppose  we  shall  hear  more  about  our  father?  So 
that,  let  me  tell  the  Prefacer,  who  perhaps  was  unacquainted  with  this 
anecdote,  that  if  he  hoped  to  curry  more  favor  with  the  family,  by  the 
inscription  he  has  framed  for  that  great  man's  monument,  he  may  find 
himself  mistaken ;  for  there  is  too  much  in  it  of  our  father •." 

Franklin  then  goes  on  to  say  that  he  will  give  a 
sketch  "in  the  lapidary  way"  which  will  do  for  a 
monument  to  the  sons  of  William  Penn. 

"  Be  this  a  Memorial 

Of  T and  R P 

P of  P 

Who  with  estates  immense 

Almost  beyond  computation 

When  their  own  province 

And  the  whole  British  empire 

Were  engaged  in  a  bloody  &  most  expensive  war 

Begun  for  the  defence  of  those  estates 

Could  yet  meanly  desire 

To  have  those  very  estates 

Totally  or  partially 

Exempted  from  taxation 

222 


THE   PENNSYLVANIA   POLITICIAN 

While  their  fellow  subjects  all  around  them 

Groaned 
Under  the  universal  burden. 

To  gain  this  point 

They  refused  the  necessary  laws 

For  the  defence  of  their  people 

And  suffered  their  colony  to  welter  in  its  blood 

Rather  than  abate  in  the  least 
Of  these  their  dishonest  pretensions. 
The  privileges  granted  by  their  father 

Wisely  and  benevolently 
To  encourage  the  first  settlers  of  the  province 

They 

Foolishly  and  cruelly, 

Taking  advantage  of  public  distress, 

Have  extorted  from  the  posterity  of  those  settlers ; 

And  are  daily  endeavoring  to  reduce  them 

To  the  most  abject  slavery ; 
Though  to  the  virtue  and  industry  of  those  people, 

In  improving  their  country 
They  owe  all  that  they  possess  and  enjoy. 

A  striking  instance 

Of  human  depravity  and  ingratitude ; 

And  an  irrefragable  proof, 

That  wisdom  and  goodness 

Do  not  descend  with  an  inheritance ; 

But  that  ineffable  meanness 
May  be  connected  with  unbounded  fortune." 

Dickinson's  followers,  of  course,  assailed  Franklin 
on  all  sides.  Their  pamphlets  are  very  exciting  read 
ing,  especially  Hugh  Williamson's  "What  is  Sauce 
for  a  Goose  is  also  Sauce  for  a  Gander,"  which  de 
scribes  itself  in  its  curious  old-fashioned  subtitle  as 

"  Being  a  small  Touch  in  the  Lapidary  Way,  or  Tit  for  Tat,  in  your 
own  way.  An  Epitaph  on  a  certain  Great  Man.  Written  by  a  De 
parted  Spirit,  and  now  most  humbly  inscribed  to  all  his  dutiful  Sons 
and  Children,  who  may  hereafter  choose  to  distinguish  him  by  the 
Name  of  A  Patriot.  Dear  Children,  I  send  you  here  a.  little  Book 
for  you  to  look  upon  that  you  may  see  your  Pappy's  Face  when  he  is 
dead  and  gone.  Philadelphia,  Printed  in  Arch  Street  1764." 

223 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

"  Pappy"  is  then  described  for  the  benefit  of  his 
children  in  an  epitaph  : 

"  An  Epitaph  &c 

To  the  much  esteem'd  Memory  of 
B  .  .  .     F  .  .  .  Esq.,  LL.D. 

Possessed  of  many  lucrative 

Offices 

Procured  to  him  by  the  Interest  of  Men 

Whom  he  infamously  treated 

And  receiving  enormous  sums 

from  the  Province 

For  Services 
He  never  performed 

After  betraying  it  to  Party  and  Contention 
He  lived,  as  to  the  Appearance  of  Wealth 

In  moderate  circumstances ; 

His  principal  Estate,  seeming  to  consist 

In  his  Hand  Maid  Barbara 

A  most  valuable  Slave 

The  Foster  Mother 

of  his  last  offspring 

Who  did  his  dirty  Work 

And  in  two  Angelic  Females 

Whom  Barbara  also  served 

As  Kitchen  Wench  and  Gold  Finder 

But  alas  the  Loss ! 
Providence  for  wise  tho'  secret  ends 
Lately  deprived  him  of  the  Mother 

of  Excellency. 

His  Fortune  was  not  however  impaired 
For  he  piously  withheld  from  her 

Manes 

The  pitiful  stipend  of  Ten  pounds  per  Annum 
On  which  he  had  cruelly  suffered  her 

To  starve 

Then  stole  her  to  the  Grave  in  Silence 
Without  a  Pall,  the  covering  due  to  her  dignity 

Without  a  tomb  or  even 

A  Monumental  Inscription." 

224 


THE   PENNSYLVANIA   POLITICIAN 

Franklin  was  a  more  skilful  "  lapidary"  than  his 
enemies,  and  his  pamphlets  were  expressed  in  better 
language,  but  there  is  now  very  little  doubt  that  he 
and  the  majority  of  the  people  were  in  the  wrong. 
The  colony  had  valuable  liberties  and  privileges  which 
had  been  built  up  by  the  Assembly  through  the  efforts 
of  nearly  a  hundred  years.  In  spite  of  all  the  aggres 
sions  of  the  proprietors  these  liberties  remained  un 
impaired  and  were  even  stronger  than  ever.  The 
appeal  to  the  king  to  take  the  colony  under  his  direct 
control  might  lead  to  disastrous  results  ;  for  if  the 
people  once  surrendered  themselves  to  the  crown 
and  the  proprietorship  was  abolished,  the  king  and 
Parliament  might  also  abolish  the  charter  and  destroy 
every  popular  right*  In  fact,  the  ministry  were  at" 
that  very  time  contemplating  the  Stamp  Act  and 
other  measures  which  brought  on  the  Revolution. 
Franklin  seemed  incapable  of  appreciating  this,  and 
retained  for  ten  years,  and  in  the  face  of  the  most 
obvious  facts,  his  strange  confidence  in  the  king.  ^ 

But  the  petition  was  carried  by  an  overwhelming 
majority,  although  Franklin  failed  to  be  re-elected 
to  the  Assembly.  He  never  had  been  so  fiercely 
assailed,  and  it  is  probable  that  the  attacks  on  his 
morals  and  motives  were  far  more  bitter  in  ordinary 
conversation  than  in  the  pamphlets.  This  abuse  may 
have  had  considerable  effect  in  preventing  his  elec 
tion.  He  was,  however,  appointed  by  the  Assembly 
its  agent  to  convey  the  petition  to  England  and  pre 
sent  it  to  the  king.  He  set  out  in  November,  1764, 

*  Pennsylvania :  Colony  and  Commonwealth,  chap.  xix. 
15  225 


THE  TRUE  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

on  this  his  second  mission  to  England  which  resulted 
in  a  residence  there  of  ten  years.  Fortunately,  the 
petition  was  unsuccessful.  He  did  not  press  it  much, 
and  the  Assembly  soon  repented  of  its  haste. 

He  settled  down  comfortably  at  No.  7  Craven 
Street,  where  Mrs.  Stevenson  and  her  daughter  were 
delighted  to  have  again  their  old  friend.  His  scien 
tific  studies  were  renewed, — spots  on  the  sun,  smoky 
chimneys,  the  aurora  borealis,  the  northwest  passage, 
the  effect  of  deep  and  shallow  water  on  the  speed  of 
boats, — and  he  was  appointed  on  committees  to  de 
vise  plans  for  putting  lightning-rods  on  St.  Paul's 
Cathedral  and  the  government  powder-magazines. 
The  circle  of  his  acquaintance  was  much  enlarged. 
He  associated  familiarly  with  the  noblemen  he  met 
at  country  houses,  was  dined  and  entertained  by 
notables  of  every  sort,  became  acquainted  with 
Garrick,  Mrs.  Montague,  and  Adam  Smith,  and 
added  another  distinguished  physician,  Sir  John 
Pringle,  to  the  list  of  his  very  intimate  friends.  He 
dined  out  almost  every  day,  was  admitted  to  all 
sorts  of  clubs,  and  of  course  diligently  attended  the 
meetings  of  all  the  associations  devoted  to  learning 
and  science. 

Although  only  an  amateur  in  medicine,  he  was  in 
vited  by  the  physicians  to  attend  the  meetings  of 
their  club,  and  it  was  of  this  club  that  he  told  the 
story  that  the  question  was  once  raised  whether 
physicians  had,  on  the  whole,  done  more  good  than 
harm.  After  a  long  debate,  Sir  John  Pringle,  the 
president,  was  asked  to  give  his  opinion,  and  replied 
that  if  by  physicians  they  meant  to  include  old 

226 


THE   PENNSYLVANIA   POLITICIAN 

women,  he  thought  they  had  done  more  good  than 
harm  ;  otherwise  more  harm  than  good. 

During  this  his  second  mission  to  England  he  be 
came  more  intimate  than  ever  with  the  good  Bishop 
of  St.  Asaph,  spending  part  of  every  summer  with 
him,  and  it  was  at  his  house  that  he  wrote  the  first 
part  of  his  Autobiography.  In  a  letter  to  his  wife, 
dated  August  14,  1771,  he  describes  the  close  of 
a  three  weeks'  stay  at  the  bishop's  : 

"  The  Bishop's  lady  knows  what  children  and  grandchildren  I  have 
and  their  ages;  so,  when  I  was  to  come  away  on  Monday,  the  I2th, 
in  the  morning,  she  insisted  on  my  staying  that  one  day  longer,  that 
we  might  together  keep  my  grandson's  birthday.  At  dinner,  among 
other  nice  things,  we  had  a  floating  island,  which  they  always  par 
ticularly  have  on  the  birthdays  of  any  of  their  own  six  children,  who 
were  all  but  one  at  table,  where  there  was  also  a  clergyman's  widow, 
now  above  one  hundred  years  old.  The  chief  toast  of  the  day  was 
Master  Benjamin  Bache,  which  the  venerable  old  lady  began  in  a 
bumper  of  mountain.  The  Bishop's  lady  politely  added  '  and  that  he 
may  be  as  good  a  man  as  his  grandfather.'  I  said  I  hoped  he  would 
be  much  better.  The  Bishop,  still  more  complaisant  than  his  lady, 
said :  '  We  will  compound  the  matter  and  be  contented  if  he  should 
not  prove  quite  so  good.'1 "  (Bigelow's  Works  of  Franklin,  vol.  vi. 
p.  71.) 

The  bishop's  daughters  were  great  friends  of 
Franklin,  and  often  exchanged  with  him  letters 
which  in  many  respects  were  almost  equal  to  his 
own.  Years  afterwards,  when  he  was  in  France 
during  the  Revolution,  and  it  was  rather  imprudent 
to  write  to  him,  one  of  them,  without  the  knowledge 
of  her  parents,  sent  him  a  most  affectionate  and 
charming  girl's  letter,  which  is  too  long  to  quote, 
but  is  well  worth  reading. 

He  had  his  wife  send  him  from  Pennsylvania  a 
227 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

number  of  live  squirrels,  which  he  gave  to  his 
friends.  One  which  he  presented  to  one  of  the 
bishop's  daughters  having  escaped  from  its  cage, 
and  being  killed  by  a  dog,  he  wrote  an  epitaph  on 
it  rather  different  from  his  political  epitaph : 

"Alas  !  poor  MUNGO  ! 
Happy  wert  thou,  hadst  thou  known 

Thy  own  felicity. 
Remote  from  the  fierce  bald  eagle 

Tyrant  of  thy  native  woods, 

Thou  hadst  naught  to  fear  from  his  piercing  talons, 
Nor  from  the  murdering  gun 
Of  the  thoughtless  sportsman. 

Safe  in  thy  weird  castle 

GRIMALKIN  never  could  annoy  thee. 

Daily  wert  thou  fed  with  the  choicest  viands, 

By  the  fair  hand  of  an  indulgent  mistress  ; 

But,  discontented, 

Thou  wouldst  have  more  freedom. 

Too  soon,  alas  !  didst  thou  obtain  it ; 

And  wandering 
Thou  art  fallen  by  the  fangs  of  wanton  cruel  Ranger  ! 

Learn  hence 

Ye  who  blindly  seek  more  liberty, 

Whether  subjects,  sons,  squirrels  or  daughters, 

That  apparent  restraint  may  be  real  protection 

Yielding  peace  and  plenty 

With  security." 

Franklin's  pleasures  in  England  remind  us  of 
other  distinguished  Americans  who,  having  gone  to 
London  to  represent  their  country,  have  suddenly 
found  themselves  in  congenial  intercourse  with  all 
that  was  best  in  the  nation  and  enjoying  the  happiest 
days  of  their  lives.  Lowell,  when  minister  there, 
had  the  same  experience  as  Franklin,  and  when  we 
read  their  experiences  together,  the  resemblance  is 

228 


THE   PENNSYLVANIA  POLITICIAN 

very  striking.  Others,  though  perhaps  in  less  de 
gree,  have  felt  the  same  touch  of  race.  Blood  is 
thicker  than  water.  But  I  doubt  if  any  of  them — 
Lowell,  Motley,  or  even  Holmes  in  his  famous  three 
months'  visit — had  such  a  good  time  as  Franklin. 

He  loved  England  and  was  no  doubt  delighted 
with  the  appointments  that  sent  him  there.  If  it  is 
true,  as  his  enemies  have  charged,  that  he  schemed 
for  public  office,  it  is  not  surprising  in  view  of  the 
pleasure  he  derived  from  appointments  such  as 
these.  Writing  to  Miss  Stevenson  on  March  23, 
1763,  after  he  had  returned  to  Pennsylvania  from 
his  first  mission,  he  says, — 

' '  Of  all  the  enviable  things  England  has,  I  envy  it  most  its  people. 
Why  should  that  petty  Island,  which,  compared  to  America,  is  but 
a  stepping  stone  in  a  brook,  scarce  enough  of  it  above  water  to 
keep  one's  shoes  dry ;  why,  I  say  should  that  little  Island  enjoy,  in 
almost  every  neighborhood,  more  sensible,  virtuous,  and  elegant 
minds  than  we  can  collect  in  ranging  a  hundred  leagues  of  our  vast 
forests?"  (Bigelow's  Works  of  Franklin,  vol.  iii.  p.  233.) 

In  fact,  he  had  resolved  at  one  time,  if  he  could 
prevail  on  Mrs.  Franklin  to  accompany  him,  to  settle 
permanently  in  England.  His  reason,  he  writes  to 
Mr.  Strahan,  was  for  America,  but  his  inclination 
for  England.  "  You  know  which  usually  prevails. 
I  shall  probably  make  but  this  one  vibration  and 
settle  here  forever.  Nothing  will  prevent  it,  if  I 
can,  as  I  hope  I  can,  prevail  with  Mrs.  F.  to  accom 
pany  me,  especially  if  we  have  a  peace."  *  This 


*  Bigelow's  Works  of  Franklin,  vol.  iii.  p.  212;  vol.  x.  pp.  295, 
302. 

229 


THE  TRUE  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

fondness  for  the  old  home  no  doubt  helped  to  form 
that  very  conservative  position  which  he  took  in  the 
beginning  of  the  Revolution,  and  which  was  so  dis 
pleasing  to  some  people  in  Massachusetts.  His 
reason,  though  not  his  inclination,  was,  as  he  says, 
for  America,  but  the  ignorant  and  brutal  course  of 
the  British  ministry  finally  made  reason  and  inclina 
tion  one. 


230 


VII 

DIFFICULTIES   AND    FAILURE    IN    ENGLAND 

FRANKLIN'S  diplomatic  career  was  now  to  begin 
in  earnest.  Although  the  petition  to  change  Penn 
sylvania  into  a  royal  province  under  the  direct  rule 
of  the  crown  was,  fortunately,  not  acted  upon  and 
not  very  seriously  pressed,  he,  nevertheless,  continued 
to  believe  that  such  a  change  would  be  beneficial  and 
might  some  day  be  accomplished. 

He  looked  upon  the  king  as  supreme  ruler  of  the 
colonies,  and  retained  this  opinion  until  he  heard  of 
actual  bloodshed  in  the  battle  of  Lexington.  The 
king  and  not  Parliament  had  in  the  beginning  given 
the  colonies  their  charters  ;  the  king  and  not  Parlia 
ment  had  always  been  the  power  that  ruled  them  ; 
wherefore  the  passage  by  Parliament  of  stamp  acts 
and  tea  acts  was  a  usurpation.  This  was  one  of  the 
arguments  in  which  many  of  the  colonists  had  sought 
refuge,  but  few  of  them  clung  to  it  so  long  as 
Franklin. 

Almost  immediately  after  his  arrival  in  London  in 
December,  1764,  the  agitations  about  the  proposed 
Stamp  Act  began,  and  within  a  few  weeks  he  was 
deep  in  them.  His  previous  residence  of  five  years 
in  London  when  he  was  trying  to  have  the  proprie 
tary  estates  taxed  had  given  him  some  knowledge  of 
men  and  affairs  in  the  great  capital ;  had  given  him, 

231 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

indeed,  his  first  lessons  in  the  diplomat's  art ;  but  he 
was  now  powerless  against  the  Stamp  Act.  The 
ministry  had  determined  on  its  passage,  and  they 
considered  the  protests  of  Franklin  and  the  other 
colonial  agents  of  little  consequence. 

The  act  passed,  and  Franklin  wrote  home  on  the 
subject  one  of  his  prettiest  letters  to  Charles  Thom 
son  : 

"  Depend  upon  it,  my  good  neighbor,  I  took  every  step  in  my  power 
to  prevent  the  passing  of  the  Stamp  Act.  But  the  tide  was  too  strong 
against  us.  ...  The  nation  was  provoked  by  American  claims  of  in 
dependence,  and  all  parties  joined  in  resolving  by  this  act  to  settle  the 
point.  We  might  as  well  have  hindered  the  sun's  setting.  That  we 
could  not  do.  But  since  it  is  down,  my  friend,  and  it  may  be  long 
before  it  rises  again,  let  us  make  as  good  a  night  of  it  as  we  can.  We 
may  still  light  candles.  Frugality  and  industry  will  go  a  great  way 
towards  indemnifying  us.  Idleness  and  pride  tax  with  a  heavier  hand 
than  kings  and  parliaments.  If  we  can  get  rid  of  the  former  we  may 
easily  bear  the  latter." 

Grenville,  in  conformity  with  his  assurance  that 
the  act  would  work  satisfactorily  even  to  the  Ameri 
cans,  announced  that  stamp  officers  would  not  be 
sent  from  England,  but  that  the  kind  mother  would 
appoint  colonists,  and  he  asked  the  colonial  agents 
to  name  to  him  honest  and  responsible  men  in  their 
several  colonies.  Franklin  recommended  his  old 
friend  John  Hughes,  a  respectable  merchant  of 
Philadelphia,  never  dreaming  that  by  so  doing  he 
was  getting  the  good  man  into  trouble.  But  as 
soon  as  Hughes's  commission  arrived  his  house  was 
threatened  by  the  mob  and  he  was  forced  to  resign. 

Franklin  had  no  idea  that  the  colonies  would  be 
so  indignant  and  offer  so  much  resistance.  He  sup- 

232 


DIFFICULTIES   AND   FAILURE   IN   ENGLAND 

posed  that  they  would  quietly  submit,  buy  the  stamps, 
and  paste  them  on  all  their  documents.  He  bought 
a  quantity  of  stamped  paper  and  sent  it  over  to  his 
partner,  David  Hall,  to  sell  in  the  little  stationery 
shop  which  was  still  attached  to  their  printing-office. 
When  he  heard  of  the  mob  violence  and  the  positive 
determination  not  to  pay  the  tax,  he  was  surprised 
and  disgusted.  He  wrote  to  John  Hughes,  express 
ing  surprise  at  the  indiscretion  of  the  people  and  the 
rashness  of  the  Virginia  Assembly.  "A  firm  loy 
alty  to  the  crown,"  he  said,  "  and  a  faithful  adherence 
to  the  government  of  this  nation,  which  it  is  the  safety 
as  well  as  honour  of  the  colonies  to  be  connected 
with,  will  always  be  the  wisest  course  for  you  and  I 
to  take."  * 

His  old  opponents,  the  proprietary  party,  were 
not  slow  to  take  this  opportunity  to  abuse  him  as 
faithless  to  his  province  and  the  American  cause. 
A  certain  Samuel  Smith  went  about  telling  the 
people  that  Franklin  had  planned  the  Stamp  Act 
and  intended  to  have  the  Test  Act  put  in  force  in 
America.  A  caricature  of  the  time  represents  the 
devil  whispering  in  his  ear,  "Thee  shall  be  agent, 
Ben,  for  all  my  dominions,"  and  underneath  was 
printed — 

"  All  his  designs  concentre  in  himself 
For  building  castles  and  amassing  pelf. 
The  public  'tis  his  wit  to  sell  for  gain, 
Whom  private  property  did  ne'er  maintain." 

The  mob  even  threatened  his  house,  much  to  the 
alarm  of  his  wife,  who,  however,  sturdily  remained 

*  Pennsylvania  :  Colony  and  Commonwealth,  p.  314. 
233 


THE  TRUE  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

and  refused  to  seek  safety  in  flight.  This  and  other 
events,  together  with  the  information  that  he  re 
ceived  from  America  during  the  next  few  months, 
compelled  him  to  change  his  ground.  He  saw  that 
there  was  to  be  substantial  resistance  to  the  act,  and 
he  joined  earnestly  in  the  agitation  for  its  repeal. 
This  agitation  was  carried  on  during  the  autumn  of 
1765  and  a  very  strong  case  made  for  the  colonies, 
the  most  telling  part  of  which  was  the  refusal  of  the 
colonists  to  buy  English  manufactured  goods,  which 
had  already  lost  the  British  merchants  millions  of 
pounds  sterling. 

In  December  Parliament  met  and  the  whole  ques 
tion  was  gone  into  with  thoroughness.  For  six  weeks 
testimony  was  taken  before  the  House  sitting  as 
committee  of  the  whole,  and  merchants,  manufac 
turers,  colonial  agents,  and  every  one  who  was  sup 
posed  to  be  able  to  throw  light  on  the  subject  were 
examined.  It  was  during  the  course  of  this  investi 
gation  that  Franklin  was  called  and  gave  those 
famous  answers  which  enhanced  his  reputation  more 
than  any  other  one  act  of  his  life,  except,  perhaps, 
his  experiment  with  the  kite. 

For  a  long  time  before  the  examination  he  had 
been  very  busy  interviewing  all  sorts  of  persons, 
going  over  the  whole  ground  of  the  controversy  and 
trying  to  impress  members  of  Parliament  with  the 
information  and  arguments  that  had  come  to  him 
from  the  colonies.  His  answers  in  the  examination 
were  not  given  so  entirely  on  the  spur  of  the 
moment  as  has  sometimes  been  supposed,  for 
he  had  gone  over  the  subject  again  and  again  in 

234 


DIFFICULTIES   AND   FAILURE   IN   ENGLAND 

conversation,  and  was  well  prepared.  But  his  re 
plies  are  truly  wonderful  in  their  exquisite  shrewd 
ness,  the  delicate  turns  of  phrase,  and  the  subtle  but 
perfectly  clear  meaning  given  to  words.  The  severe 
training  in  analyzing  and  rewriting  the  essays  of  the 
Spectator  stood  him  in  good  stead  that  day,  and  we 
realize  more  fully  what  he  himself  said,  that  it  was 
to  his  mastery  of  language  that  he  owed  his  great 
reputation. 

They  asked  him,  for  example,  "Are  you  ac 
quainted  with  Newfoundland  ?"  He  could  not  tell 
to  what  they  might  be  leading  him,  and  some  peo 
ple  would  have  replied  no,  or  yes  ;  but  the  wily  old 
philosopher  contented  himself  with  saying,  ' '  I  never 
was  there." 

They  drove  him  into  an  awkward  corner  at  one 
point  of  the  examination.  He  had  been  showing 
that  the  colonies  had  no- objection  to  voting  of  their 
own  free  will  supplies  to  the  British  crown,  and  had 
frequently  done  so  in  the  French  and  Indian  wars. 

"But,"  said  his  questioner,  "suppose  one  of  the 
colonial  assemblies  should  refuse  to  raise  supplies 
for  its  own  local  government,  would  it  not  then  be 
right,  in  order  to  preserve  order  and  carry  on  the 
government  in  that  locality,  that  Parliament  should 
tax  that  colony,  inasmuch  as  it  would  not  tax  itself 
for  its  own  support?" 

Franklin  parried  the  question  by  saying  that  such 
a  case  could  not  happen,  and  if  it  did,  it  would  cure 
itself  by  the  disorder  and  confusion  that  would 
arise. 

"But,"  insisted  his  tormentor,  "just  suppose  that 
235 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

it  did  happen  ;  should  not  Parliament  have  the  right 
to  remedy  such  an  evil  state  of  affairs?" 

The  philosopher  yielded  a  little  to  this  last  ques 
tion,  and  said  that  there  might  be  such  a  right  if  it 
were  used  only  for  the  good  of  the  people  of  the 
colony.  This  was  exactly  what  they  had  wanted 
him  to  say,  so  they  put  the  next  question  which 
would  clinch  the  nail. 

"But  who  is  to  judge  of  that,  Britain  or  the 
colonies?" 

This  was  difficult  to  answer ;  but  with  inimitable 
sagacity  their  victim  replied, — 

"Those  that  feel  can  best  judge." 

It  was  a  narrow  escape,  but  he  was  safely  out  of 
the  trap.  Then  they  badgered  him  about  the  differ 
ence  between  external  taxes,  such  as  customs  duties 
and  taxes  on  commerce,  which  he  said  the  colonists 
had  always  been  willing  to  pay,  and  internal  taxes, 
like  the  Stamp  Tax,  which  they  would  never  pay  and 
could  not  be  made  to  pay.  He  was  very  positive 
on  this  point ;  so  a  member  asked  him  whether  it 
was  not  likely,  since  the  colonists  were  so  opposed 
to  internal  taxes,  that  they  would  in  time  assume 
the  same  rebellious  attitude  towards  external  taxes. 
Franklin's  reply  was  very  subtle  in  showing  how 
Great  Britain  was  driving  the  colonies  more  and 
more  into  rebellion  : 

"  They  never  have  hitherto.  Many  arguments  have  been  lately 
used  here  to  show  them  that  there  is  no  difference,  and  that  if  you 
have  no  right  to  tax  them  internally,  you  have  none  to  tax  them  ex 
ternally,  or  make  any  other  law  to  bind  them.  At  present  they  do 
not  reason  so ;  but  in  time  they  may  possibly  be  convinced  by  these 
arguments." 

236 


DIFFICULTIES  AND   FAILURE   IN   ENGLAND 

They  reminded  him  of  the  clause  in  the  charter 
of  Pennsylvania  which  expressly  allowed  Parliament 
to  tax  that  colony.  How,  then,  they  said,  can  the 
Pennsylvanians  assert  that  the  Stamp  Act  is  an  in 
fringement  of  their  rights  ?  This  was  a  poser  ;  but 
Franklin  was  equal  to  the  occasion. 

' '  They  understand  it  thus  :  by  the  same  charter  and  otherwise 
they  are  entitled  to  all  the  privileges  and  liberties  of  Englishmen. 
They  find  in  the  Great  Charters  and  the  Petition  and  Declaration  of 
Rights  that  one  of  the  privileges  of  English  subjects  is,  that  they 
are  not  to  be  taxed  but  by  their  common  consent.  They  have 
therefore  relied  upon  it,  from  the  first  settlement  of  the  province, 
that  the  Parliament  never  would,  nor  could,  by  color  of  that  clause 
in  the  charter,  assume  a  right  of  taxing  them  till  it  had  qualified 
itself  to  exercise  such  right  by  admitting  representatives  from  the 
people  to  be  taxed,  who  ought  to  make  a  part  of  that  common 
consent. ' ' 

But  to  print  all  the  brilliant  passages  of  this  ex 
amination  would  require  too  much  space.  It  should 
be  read  entire  ;  for  in  its  wonderful  display  of  human 
intelligence  we  see  Franklin  at  his  best.  He  never 
did  anything  else  quite  equal  to  it,  and  he  never 
again  had  such  an  opportunity.  It  was  an  ordeal 
that  would  have  crushed  or  appalled  ordinary  men, 
and  would  have  been  too  much  for  some  very  able 
men.  They  would  have  evaded  the  severe  questions, 
given  commonplace  answers,  or  sought  refuge  in  ob 
scurity,  eloquence,  or  sentiment.  But  Franklin,  with 
perfect  composure,  ease,  and  almost  indifference, 
met  every  question  squarely  as  it  was  asked.  Many 
other  persons  were  examined  during  the  long  weeks 
of  that  investigation,  but  who  now  knows  who  they 
were?  They  may  have  been  as  well  informed  as 

237 


THE  TRUE  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

Franklin,  and  doubtless  many  of  them  were  ;  but 
they  were  submerged  in  the  situation  which  he  made 
a  stepping-stone  to  greatness. 

In  nothing  that  he  said  can  there  be  discovered 
the  slightest  trace  of  hurry,  surprise,  or  disturbed 
temper ;  everything  is  unruffled  and  smooth.  He 
guards  without  effort  the  beauty  and  perfection  of 
his  language  as  carefully  as  its  substance.  Each 
reply  is  complete.  Nothing  can  be  added  to  it, 
and  it  would  be  impossible  to  abbreviate  it  It  was 
his  superb  physical  constitution  that  enabled  him  to 
bear  himself  thus.  No  prize-fighter  could  have  been 
more  self-possessed. 

As  is  well  known,  he  could  seldom  speak  long, 
especially  at  this  time  of  his  life,  without  jesting  or 
telling  stories ;  but  there  is  no  trace  of  this  in  the 
examination,  and  the  slightest  touch  of  anything  of 
the  kind  would  have  marred  its  wonderful  merit. 
In  his  previous  conversations  with  members  he  had 
been  humorous  enough.  On  one  occasion  a  Tory 
asked  him,  as  he  would  not  agree  to  the  act,  to  at 
least  help  them  to  amend  it  He  said  he  could 
easily  do  that  by  the  change  of  a  single  word.  The 
act  read  that  it  was  to  be  enforced  on  a  certain  day 
in  the  year  one  thousand  seven  hundred  and  sixty- 
five.  Just  change  one  to  two,  he  said,  and  America 
will  have  little  or  no  objection  to  it.  During  his  ex 
amination  members  who  favored  the  repeal  asked 
him  questions  calculated  to  bring  out  his  favorite 
arguments,  and  one  of  them,  remembering  this  jest, 
asked  him  a  question  which  would  lead  to  it.  It 
seems  to  have  been  the  only  question  he  evaded ; 

238  ' 


DIFFICULTIES  AND   FAILURE   IN   ENGLAND 

for,  as  he  has  told  us,  he  considered  such  a  jest  too 
light  and  ridiculous  for  the  occasion. 

The  Stamp  Act  was  repealed  principally  through 
the  efforts  of  the  merchants  and  tradespeople  who 
thronged  the  lobbies  of  the  House  of  Commons  and 
clamorously  demanded  that  the  Americans  should 
be  restored  to  a  condition  in  which  they  would  be 
willing  to  buy  British  goods  ;  but  there  is  no  ques 
tion  that  Franklin's  efforts  and  examination  greatly 
assisted,  and  members  of  the  opposition  party  thanked 
him  for  the  aid  he  had  given  them  in  carrying  the 
repeal.  Pennsylvania  reappointed  him  her  agent, 
and  he  continued  his  life  in  London  as  a  sort  of 
colonial  ambassador.  In  1768  Georgia  made  him 
her  agent,  and  during  the  next  two  years  he  was 
appointed  agent  for  both  New  Jersey  and  Massa 
chusetts  ;  so  that  he  was  in  a  sense  representing  at 
London  the  interests  of  America. 

His  appointment  as  the  agent  of  Massachusetts 
had  been  opposed  by  many  of  the  leaders  of  the 
liberty  party  in  Boston  ;  for  his  opinions  were  rather 
too  moderate  to  suit  them.  He  still  retained  his 
confidence  in  George  III.  as  a  safe  ruler  for  Ameri- 
ica,  and  he  did  all  he  could  to  soften  and  accom 
modate  the  differences  existing  between  the  colonies 
and  the  mother  country. 

His  motives  were,  of  course,  attacked  and  his 
moderation  ascribed  to  his  love  of  office.  He  was 
at  that  time  Postmaster  of  North  America,  and  as 
his  income  of  a  thousand  pounds  a  year  from  his 
partnership  with  David  Hall  in  the  printing  business 
ceased  in  1 766,  he  was  naturally  desirous  to  retain 

239 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

his  postmaster's  salary.  His  zeal  for  the  American 
cause  was  inclining  Lord  Sandwich,  the  Postmaster- 
General,  to  remove  him,  while  the  Duke  of  Grafton 
was  disposed  to  give  him  a  better  office  in  England, 
in  order  to  identify  him  with  the  mother  country 
and  bring  him  into  close  relations  with  the  govern 
ment. 

There  is  no  evidence  that  he  was  unduly  influ 
enced  by  love  of  office.  His  confidence  in  the  king 
was  merely  a  mistake  which  many  other  people 
made,  and  his  moderation  and  attempt  to  settle  all 
difficulties  amicably  were  measures  which  a  man  of 
his  temperament  and  in  his  position  would  naturally 
take. 

He  tried  to  give  the  English  correct  opinions 
about  America,  and  to  disclose  the  true  interest  and 
the  true  relations  which  should  subsist  between  the 
mother  and  her  daughters.  To  this  end  he  wrote 
articles  for  the  newspapers,  and  reprinted  Dickin 
son's  "Farmer's  Letters"  with  a  preface  written  by 
himself.  There  was  a  large  party  led  by  Burke, 
Barre,  Onslow,  Lord  Chatham,  and  others  who  were 
favorable  to  America,  and  it  seemed  as  if  this  party 
might  be  made  larger.  At  any  rate,  Franklin  felt 
bound  to  take  sides  with  them,  and  assist  them  as 
far  as  possible.  His  articles  were  humorous,  and 
necessarily  anonymous  ;  for  he  feared  they  would 
lose  half  of  the  slight  effect  they  had  if  the  name  of 
the  American  agent  were  signed  to  them. 

His  two  famous  articles  were  published  in  the 
early  autumn  of  1773.  One,  called  "Rules  for 
Reducing  a  Great  Empire  to  a  Small  One,"  was  an 

240 


DIFFICULTIES  AND   FAILURE   IN   ENGLAND 

admirable  satire  on  the  conduct  of  the  British 
government.  A  great  empire  is  like  a  cake,  most 
easily  diminished  at  the  edges.  Take  care  that 
colonies  never  enjoy  the  same  rights  as  the  mother 
country.  Forget  all  benefits  conferred  by  colonies  ; 
treat  them  as  if  they  were  always  inclined  to  revolt ; 
send  prodigals,  broken  gamesters,  and  stock-jobbers 
to  rule  over  them ;  punish  them  for  petitioning 
against  injustice  ;  despise  their  voluntary  grants  of 
money,  and  harass  them  with  novel  taxes  ;  threaten 
that  you  have  the  right  to  tax  them  without  limit ; 
take  away  from  them  trial  by  jury  and  habeas  corpus, 
and  those  who  are  suspected  of  crimes  bring  to  the 
mother  country  for  trial ;  send  the  most  insolent 
officials  to  collect  the  taxes ;  apply  the  proceeds  of 
the  taxes  to  increasing  salaries  and  pensions  ;  keep 
adjourning  the  colonial  assemblies  until  they  pass 
the  laws  you  want ;  redress  no  grievances  ;  and  send 
a  standing  army  among  them  commanded  by  a 
general  with  unlimited  power. 

The  popularity  of  this  piece  was  so  great  that  all 
the  newspapers  copied  it  and  new  editions  had  to 
be  issued.  The  other  article  was  a  short  squib, 
called  "An  Edict  of  the  King  of  Prussia,"  and  pro 
fesses  to  be  a  formal  announcement  by  Frederick 
the  Great  that,  inasmuch  as  the  British  isles  were 
originally  Saxon  colonies  and  have  now  reached  a 
flourishing  condition,  it  is  just  and  expedient  that  a 
revenue  be  raised  from  them  ;  and  he  goes  on  to 
declare  the  measures  he  had  decided  to  put  in  force, 
which  are  most  clever  burlesques  on  the  measures 
adopted  by  England  for  America. 

16  24I 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

This  edict  also  had  a  great  run  of  popularity,  and 
of  course  its  authorship  became  known.  Many  of 
the  slow-witted  English  at  first  thought  it  real,  and 
Franklin  in  a  letter  to  his  son  gives  an  interesting 
account  of  its  reception,  and  at  the  same  time  allows 
us  a  glimpse  of  his  life  at  English  country  houses  : 

"  I  was  down  at  Lord  le  Despencer's,  when  the  post  brought  that 
day's  papers.  Mr.  Whitehead  was  there,  too,  (Paul  Whitehead,  the 
author  of  *  Manners,')  who  runs  early  through  all  the  papers,  and 
tells  the  company  what  he  finds  remarkable.  He  had  them  in 
another  room,  and  we  were  chatting  in  the  breakfast  parlor,  when 
he  came  running  in  to  us  out  of  breath,  with  the  paper  in  his  hand. 
4  Here,'  says  he,  'here's  news  for  ye  !  Here's  the  King  of  Prussia 
claiming  a  right  to  this  kingdom  !'  All  stared,  and  I  as  much  as 
anybody ;  and  he  went  on  to  read  it.  When  he  had  read  two  or 
three  paragraphs,  a  gentleman  present  said,  '  Damn  his  impudence  ; 
I  dare  say  we  shall  hear  by  next  post  that  he  is  upon  his  march  with 
one  hundred  thousand  men  to  back  this. '  Whitehead,  who  is  very 
shrewd,  soon  after  began  to  smoke  it,  and  looking  in  my  face,  said, 
'  I'll  be  hanged  if  this  is  not  some  of  your  American  jokes  upon  us.' 
The  reading  went  on,  and  ended  with  abundance  of  laughing,  and 
a  general  verdict  that  it  was  a  fair  hit ;  and  the  piece  was  cut  out  of 
the  paper  and  preserved  in  my  Lord's  collection." 

This  was  all  very  pleasant  for  Franklin,  and  in 
creased  his  fame,  especially  among  the  Whigs,  who 
were  already  on  the  side  of  America.  But  the 
Tories,  whom  it  was  necessary  to  win,  were  so  indig 
nant  and  so  deeply  disgusted  that  these  brilliant 
essays  may  be  said  to  have  done  more  harm  than 
good. 

It  is  not  usual  for  an  ambassador  in  a  foreign 
country  to  discuss  in  the  public  prints  the  questions 
at  issue  between  that  country  and  his  own.  It 
would  generally  be  regarded  as  serious  misconduct, 

242 


DIFFICULTIES  AND   FAILURE   IN   ENGLAND 

and  the  rule  which  prohibits  it  seems  to  be  founded 
on  good  reasons.  The  ambassador  is  not  there  for 
the  purpose  of  instructing  or  influencing  the  general 
public.  He  is  not  in  any  way  concerned  with  them, 
but  is  concerned  only  with  the  heads  of  the  govern 
ment,  with  whom  alone  he  carries  on  the  business 
of  his  mission.  In  order  that  he  may  fulfil  his  part 
successfully  he  must  be  acceptable,  or  at  least  not 
offensive,  to  the  persons  in  control  of  the  govern 
ment  But  how  can  he  be  acceptable  to  them  if  he 
is  openly  or  in  secret  appealing  to  the  people  of  the 
country  against  them  ?  Will  they  not  regard  him 
very  much  as  if  he  were  a  spy  or  an  enemy  in  dis 
guise  in  their  midst? 

This  was  precisely  the  difficulty  into  which  Frank 
lin  got  himself.  He  was  not  called  an  ambassador, 
and  he  would  not  have  been  willing  to  admit  that 
he  was  in  a  foreign  country.  But  in  effect  he  was 
in  that  position,  being  the  duly  accredited  agent  of 
colonies  that  had  a  serious  quarrel  with  the  mother 
country  which  every  one  knew  might  terminate  in 
war.  When  he  began  to  write  anonymous  articles 
full  of  sarcasm  and  severity  against  the  ministry  of 
the  party  in  power  he  was  doing  what,  under  ordi 
nary  diplomatic  circumstances,  might  have  caused 
his  dismissal.  It  was  distinctly  a  step  downward. 
It  was  not  different  in  essentials  from  that  of  an  am 
bassador  joining  one  of  the  political  parties  of  the 
country  to  which  he  is  accredited  and  making  stump 
speeches  for  it.  His  arguments  were  approved  only 
by  people  among  the  English  liberals  who  were  al 
ready  convinced,  while  they  made  him  bitter  ene- 

243 


THE   TRUE  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

mies  among  the  Tory  governing  class  at  a  time 
when  he  had  every  reason  to  mollify  them,  and 
when  he  was  doing  his  utmost  to  accommodate 
amicably  the  differences  between  the  mother  and 
her  daughters.  They  had  now  a  handle  against 
him,  something  that  would  offset  the  charm  of  his 
conversation,  his  learning,  and  his  discoveries  in 
science  which  gave  him  such  influence  among  nota 
ble  people.  They  soon  had  the  opportunity  they 
wanted  in  the  famous  episode  of  the  Hutchinson 
letters. 

In  order  to  carry  out  his  purpose  of  accommo 
dating  all  disputes,  he  was  in  the  habit  of  saying 
wherever  he  went  in  England  that  the  colonies 
were  most  loyal  and  loving ;  that  there  was  no 
necessity  for  the  severe  measures  against  Boston, — 
quartering  troops  on  her,  and  other  oppressions. 
Such  severities  created  the  impression  among  the 
Americans  that  the  whole  English  nation  was  against 
them  ;  they  did  not  stop  to  think  that  it  was  merely 
the  ministry  and  the  party  in  power.  Accordingly 
there  were  riots  and  tumults  among  some  of  the 
disorderly  classes  in  America  which  in  their  turn 
created  a  wrong  impression  in  England,  where  such 
disturbances  were  falsely  supposed  to  be  representa 
tive  of  the  colonists  at  large.  In  this  way  the  mis 
understanding  was  continually  aggravated  because 
the  true  state  of  things  was  unknown. 

Many  people  in  England  were  disposed  to  smile 
at  this  pretty  delusion  of  peace  and  affection,  but 
they  thought  it  best  to  let  the  colonial  agents  con 
tinue  under  its  influence  and  not  acquaint  them 

244 


DIFFICULTIES   AND   FAILURE  IN  ENGLAND 

with  the  means  they  had  of  knowing  the  contrary. 
At  last,  however,  in  the  year  1772,  one  of  them  let 
the  cat  out  of  the  bag.  Franklin  was  talking  in 
his  usual  strain  to  a  Whig  member  of  Parliament 
who  was  disposed  to  be  very  friendly  to  America, 
when  that  member  frankly  told  him  that  he  must 
be  mistaken.  The  disorders  in  America  were  much 
worse  than  he  supposed.  The  severe  measures  com 
plained  of  were  not  the  mere  suggestion  of  the  party 
in  power  in  England,  but  had  been  asked  for  by 
people  in  Boston  as  the  only  means  of  restoring 
order  and  pacifying  the  country,  which  was  really 
in  a  most  rebellious  and  dangerous  state. 

When  Franklin  expressed  surprise  and  doubt,  the 
member  said  he  would  soon  satisfy  him,  and  a  few 
days  after  placed  in  his  hands  a  packet  of  letters 
which  had  been  written  by  Thomas  Hutchinson,  the 
Governor  of  Massachusetts,  Andrew  Oliver,  the 
Lieutenant-Governor,  and  some  other  officials  to 
Mr.  William  Whately,  a  man  who  had  held  some 
subordinate  offices  and  had  been  an  important  politi 
cal  worker  in  the  Grenville  party. 

The  letters  described  the  situation  in  Massachu 
setts  in  the  year  1 768  ;  the  riotous  proceedings  when 
John  Hancock's  sloop  was  seized  for  violating  the 
revenue  laws  ;  how  the  customs  officers  were  in 
sulted,  beaten,  the  windows  of  their  houses  broken, 
and  they  obliged  to  take  refuge  on  the  "  Romney" 
man-of-war.  These  and  other  proceedings  the 
writers  of  the  letters  intimated  were  approved  by 
the  majority  of  the  people,  and  they  recommended 
that  these  turbulent  colonists  should,  for  their  own 

245 


THE  TRUE  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

good,  be  restrained  by  force,  and  the  liberty  they  were 
misusing  curtailed.  "  There  must  be  an  abridgment," 
said  one  of  Hutchinson's  letters,  "  of  what  are  called 
English  liberties." 

Hutchinson,  as  well  as  some  of  the  other  writers 
of  the  letters,  were  natives  of  New  England  ;  and 
Hutchinson,  before  he  became  governor,  had  had 
a  long  public  career  in  Massachusetts  in  which  he 
had  distinguished  himself  as  a  most  conservative, 
prudent,  and  able  man  who  had  conferred  many 
benefits  on  the  colony.  The  letters  by  him  and 
the  other  officials  had  been  handed  about  among 
prominent  people  in  London,  who  regarded  them 
as  better  evidence  of  the  real  situation  in  America 
than  the  benevolent  talk  of  the  colonial  agent  or  his 
brilliant  and  anonymous  sallies  in  the  newspapers. 

The  condition  which  the  member  of  Parliament 
annexed  to  his  loan  of  the  letters  to  Franklin  was 
that  they  should  not  be  printed  or  copied,  and  after 
having  been  read  by  the  leaders  of  the  patriot  move 
ment  in  Massachusetts,  they  were  to  be  returned  to 
London.  He  must  have  had  very  little  knowledge 
of  the  world,  and  Franklin  must  have  smiled  at  the 
condition.  Of  course,  in  transmitting  the  letters  to 
Massachusetts  Franklin  mentioned  the  condition. 
This  relieved  him  from  responsibility,  and  John 
Adams  and  John  Hancock  could  do  what  they 
thought  right  under  the  circumstances. 

What  might  have  been  expected  soon  followed. 
The  leaders  in  Boston  read  the  letters  and  were 
furious.  Here  were  their  own  governors  and  offi 
cials  secretly  furnishing  the  British  government  with 

246 


DIFFICULTIES  AND   FAILURE  IN  ENGLAND 

information  that  would  bring  punishment  on  the 
colony,  and  actually  recommending  that  the  punish 
ment  should  be  inflicted.  One  of  Hutchinson's 
letters  distinctly  stated  that  the  information  fur 
nished  by  him  in  a  previous  letter  had  brought  the 
troops  to  Boston  ;  and,  as  is  well  known,  it  was  the 
collision  of  some  of  these  troops  with  a  mob  which  led 
to  what  has  been  called  the  "Boston  massacre." 

John  Adams  showed  the  letters  to  his  aunt ; 
others  showed  them  to  relatives  and  friends,  no 
doubt,  with  the  most  positive  instructions  that  they 
were  not  to  be  copied  or  printed,  and  were  to  be 
exhibited  only  to  certain  people.  The  Assembly 
met,  and  John  Hancock,  with  a  mysterious  air,  an 
nounced  that  a  most  important  matter  would  in  a 
few  days  be  submitted  to  that  body  for  considera 
tion  ;  but  most  of  the  members  knew  about  it  al 
ready  ;  and  when  the  day  arrived  the  public  was 
refused  admittance  and  the  letters  read  to  the  As 
sembly  in  secret  session.  As  for  publishing  them, 
they  were  soon  in  print  in  London  as  well  as  in  the 
colonies ;  and  when  the  originals  could  be  of  no 
further  use,  John  Adams  put  them  in  an  envelope 
and  sent  them  back  to  London,  as  the  condition 
required. 

The  Assembly  resolved  to  ask  the  crown  to  re 
move  both  Hutchinson  and  Oliver,  and  prepared  a 
petition  to  that  effect,  basing  the  request  on  the 
ground  that  these  two  men  had  plotted  to  encourage 
and  intensify  the  quarrel  of  the  colonies  with  the 
mother  country.  By  their  false  representations  they 
had  caused  a  fleet  and  an  army  to  be  brought  to 

247 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

Massachusetts,  and  were  therefore  the  cause  of  the 
confusion  and  bloodshed  which  had  resulted.  This 
petition  reached  the  king  in  the  summer  of  1773. 

Franklin  thought  that  the  whole  affair  would  have 
a  good  effect.  The  resentment  of  the  colonies 
against  the  mother  country  would  be  transferred  to 
Hutchinson  and  the  other  individuals  who  had 
caused  it ;  the  ministry  would  see  that  the  colonists 
were  sincerely  desirous  of  a  good  understanding 
with  the  British  government  and  that  Hutchinson 
and  Oliver  were  evil  persons  bent  on  fomenting 
trouble  and  responsible  for  all  the  recent  difficulties 
in  Massachusetts.  This  was  a  pleasant  theory,  but 
it  turned  out  to  be  utterly  unsound  and  useless. 
The  effect  of  the  letters  was  just  the  opposite  of 
what  was  expected.  Instead  of  modifying  the  feel 
ings  of  the  colonists  and  the  ministry,  they  increased 
the  resentment  of  both. 

The  king  and  his  Privy  Council  were  not  inclined 
to  pay  any  attention  to  the  petition,  and  it  might 
have  slept  harmlessly  like  other  petitions  from 
America  at  that  time.  But  when  the  letters  were 
printed  in  London,  people  began  to  wonder  how 
they  had  reached  the  colonists.  They  were  in  a 
sense  secret  information,  and  had  been  intrusted  to 
persons  who  were  supposed  to  understand  that  they 
were  for  government  circles  alone.  William  Whately, 
to  whom  they  had  been  written,  was  dead,  and  as  it 
began  to  be  suspected  that  his  brother  and  executor, 
Thomas  Whately,  might  have  put  them  into  circula 
tion,  he  felt  bound  to  defend  himself. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  they  seem  to  have  passed  out 
248 


DIFFICULTIES  AND   FAILURE   IN   ENGLAND 

of  William  Whately's  hands  before  his  death,  and 
were  never  in  the  possession  of  the  executor.  But 
the  executor  had  given  permission  to  John  Temple 
to  look  over  the  deceased  Whately's  papers  and  to 
take  from  them  certain  letters  which  Temple  and  his 
brother  had  written  to  him.  Accordingly,  Thomas 
Whately  went  to  see  Temple,  who  gave  the  most 
positive  assurances  that  he  had  taken  only  his  own 
and  his  brother's  letters,  and  he  repeated  these  as 
surances  twice  afterwards.  But  the  suspicion  against 
him  getting  into  the  newspapers,  he  demanded  from 
Whately  a  public  statement  exonerating  him. 
Whately  published  a  statement  which  merely  gave 
the  facts  and  exonerated  him  no  more  than  to  say 
that  Temple  had  assured  him  he  did  not  take  the 
Hutchinson  letters.  Such  a  statement  left  an  un 
pleasant  implication  against  Temple,  for  the  exec 
utor  seemed  studiously  to  avoid  saying  that  he 
believed  Temple's  assurances. 

So  Temple  challenged  Whately,  and  the  challenge 
was  carried  by  Ralph  Izard,  of  South  Carolina. 
They  fought  a  queer  sort  of  duel  which  would  have 
amused  Frenchmen,  and  half  a  century  later  would 
have  amused  Carolinians.  Whately  declined  to  be 
bothered  with  a  second,  so  Temple  could  not  have 
one.  They  met  in  Hyde  Park  at  four  in  the  morn 
ing,  Whately  with  a  sword  and  Temple  with  both 
sword  and  pistols.  Seeing  that  Whately  had  only  a 
sword,  he  supposed  that  he  must  be  particularly 
expert  with  it,  and  he  therefore  suggested  that  they 
fight  with  pistols.  They  emptied  their  weapons 
without  effect,  and  then  took  to  their  blades. 

249 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

Temple,  who  was  something  of  a  swordsman, 
soon  discovered  that  Whately  knew  nothing  of  the 
art,  and  he  chivalrously  tried  to  wound  him  slightly, 
so  as  to  end  the  encounter.  But  Whately  slashed 
and  cut  in  a  bungling  way  that  was  extremely  dan 
gerous  ;  and  Temple,  rinding  that  he  was  risking  his 
life  by  his  magnanimity,  aimed  a  thrust  which  would 
have  killed  Whately  if  he  had  not  seized  the  blade 
in  his  left  hand.  As  it  was,  it  wounded  him  severely 
in  the  side,  and  he  suggested  that  the  fight  end. 
But  his  opponent  in  this  extraordinary  duel  was 
deaf,  and,  recovering  his  sword,  as  Whately  slipped 
forward  he  wounded  him  in  the  back  of  the  shoulder. 

Izard  and  Arthur  Lee,  of  Virginia,  now  arrived  on 
the  scene  and  separated  the  combatants.  One  re 
sult  of  not  fighting  in  the  regular  manner  with  wit 
nesses  was  that  some  people  believed,  from  the 
wound  on  Whately 's  back,  that  Temple  had  at 
tempted  to  stab  him  when  he  was  down.  Meantime 
Franklin,  who  had  been  out  of  town  on  one  of  his 
pleasant  excursions,  returned  to  London  and,  hear 
ing  that  another  duel  between  the  two  was  imminent, 
published  a  letter  in  the  newspapers  announcing 
that  he  was  the  person  who  had  obtained  and  sent 
the  letters  to  Massachusetts,  and  that  they  had 
never  been  in  the  possession  of  the  executor  and 
consequently  could  not  have  been  stolen  from  him 
by  Temple. 

He  supposed  that  he  had  ended  the  difficulty  most 
handsomely,  and  he  continued  to  hope  for  good  re 
sults  from  making  the  letters  public.  But  the  min 
istry  and  the  Tories  had  now  the  opportunity  they 

250 


DIFFICULTIES   AND   FAILURE   IN   ENGLAND 

wanted.  They  saw  a  way  to  deprive  him  of  his  office 
of  postmaster  and  attack  his  character.  He  had  ad 
mitted  sending  the  letters  to  Massachusetts.  But 
how  had  he  obtained  them  ?  How  did  he  get  pos 
session  of  the  private  letters  of  a  deceased  member 
of  the  government ;  letters,  too,  that  every  one  had 
been  warned  not  to  allow  to  get  into  a  colonial 
agent's  hands  ?  If  the  distinguished  man  of  science 
whose  fascinating  manner  and  conversation  were  the 
delight  of  London  drawing-rooms  and  noblemen's 
country-seats  had  stepped  down  from  the  heights 
of  philosophy  to  do  this  sort  of  work,  why,  then,  his 
great  reputation  and  popularity  need  no  longer  be 
considered  as  protecting  him. 

It  was  unfortunate  that  Franklin  sent  these  letters 
to  Massachusetts  in  the  way  that  has  been  described. 
At  the  same  time  it  is  rather  too  much  to  expect 
that  he  should  have  foreseen  all  the  results.  But 
after  more  than  a  hundred  years  have  passed  we 
can  perhaps  review  the  position  of  the  Tory  govern 
ment  a  little  more  calmly  than  has  been  usual. 

Let  us  suppose  that  the  Spanish  minister  in  the 
United  States  should  get  possession  of  letters  sent 
from  Spain  by  our  minister  there  to  the  Secretary 
of  State  at  Washington  ;  and  we  will  assume  also 
that  these  letters  relate  to  a  matter  of  serious  con 
troversy  between  our  country  and  Spain,  and  are 
the  private  communications  from  our  minister  to  the 
Secretary  of  State.  If  the  Spanish  minister  should 
send  these  letters  to  his  government,  and  that  gov 
ernment  should  publish  them  in  its  own  and  our 
newspapers,  would  there  not  be  considerable  indig- 

251 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

nation  in  America  ?  Would  it  not  be  said  that  the 
Spanish  minister  was  here  to  conduct  diplomatic 
negotiations  in  the  usual  way  and  not  for  the  pur 
pose  of  securing  possession  of  the  private  documents 
of  our  government?  Would  it  not  be  assumed  at 
once  that  he  must  have  bribed  some  one  to  give 
him  the  letters,  or  got  them  in  some  other  clandes 
tine  way?  and  would  not  his  country  in  all  proba 
bility  be  asked  to  recall  him  ? 

Then,  too,  we  must  remember  that  Franklin's  ar 
gument  that  the  colonies  were  all  loyal  and  needed 
only  a  little  kind  treatment  was  in  the  eyes  of  the 
Tories  a  pious  sham  ;  and  they  were  somewhat  jus 
tified  in  thinking  so.  It  is  true,  indeed,  that  outside 
of  Massachusetts  the  people  were  very  loyal,  and 
determined  not  to  break  with  Great  Britain  unless 
they  were  forced  to  it  But  in  Massachusetts  Samuel 
Adams  was  laboring  night  and  day  to  force  a  breach. 
He  had  as  much  contempt  as  the  Tories  for  Frank 
lin's  peace  and  love  policy,  and  thought  it  ridiculous 
that  such  a  man  should  be  the  agent  for  Massachu 
setts.  He  was  convinced  that  there  never  would  be 
peace,  that  it  was  not  desirable,  and  that  the  sooner 
there  were  war  and  independence  the  better. 

The  Tory  government  knew  all  this ;  it  knew  of 
the  committees  of  correspondence  that  the  Boston 
patriots  were  inaugurating  to  inflame  the  whole 
country  ;  it  knew  all  these  things,  from  the  reports 
of  the  royal  governors  and  other  officials  in  the 
colonies,  and  it  was  probably  better  acquainted  with 
the  real  situation  than  was  Franklin.  There  may 
still  be  read  among  the  documents  of  the  British 

252 


DIFFICULTIES  AND   FAILURE   IN   ENGLAND 

government  the  affidavits  of  the  persons  who  fol 
lowed  Samuel  Adams  about  and  took  down  his  words 
when  he  was  secretly  inciting  the  lower  classes  of 
the  people  in  Boston  to  open  rebellion.*  About  the 
time  that  Whately  and  Temple  fought  their  duel,  in 
December,  1773,  the  tea  was  thrown  overboard  in 
Boston  harbor,  and  it  is  now  generally  believed  that 
Samuel  Adams  inspired  and  encouraged  this  act  as 
one  which  would  most  surely  lead  to  a  breach  with 
the  mother  country. 

The  school-book  story  of  the  "  Boston  Tea  Party" 
has  been  so  deeply  impressed  upon  our  minds  as 
one  of  the  glorious  deeds  of  patriotism  that  its  true 
bearings  are  obscured.  There  were  many  patriots 
at  the  time  who  did  not  consider  it  a  wise  act. 
Besides  Boston,  the  tea  was  sent  by  the  East  India 
Company  to  Charleston,  Philadelphia,  and  New 
York,  and  in  these  cities  the  people  prevented  its 
being  landed  and  sold  ;  but  they  did  not  destroy  it. 
They  considered  that  they  had  a  right  to  prevent  its 
landing  and  sale  ;  that  in  doing  this  they  were  act 
ing  in  a  legal  and  constitutional  manner  to  protect 
their  rights  ;  but  to  destroy  it  would  have  been  both 
a  riotous  act  and  an  attack  on  private  property. 

The  Tory  ministry,  while  having  no  serious  objec 
tion  to  the  method  adopted  in  Charleston,  Philadel 
phia,  and  New  York,  considered  the  Boston  method 
decidedly  riotous,  and  from  its  point  of  view  such  a 
conclusion  was  natural.  It  seemed  to  be  of  a  piece 
with  all  the  other  occurrences  which  Hutchinson 


*  Hosmer's  Life  of  Samuel  Adams,  p.  117. 
253 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

and  Oliver  had  described  in  their  letters,  and  it  con 
firmed  most  strongly  all  the  statements  and  recom 
mendations  in  those  letters.  It  was  decided  to 
punish  Boston  in  a  way  that  she  would  remember, 
and  in  the  following  March,  after  careful  delibera 
tion,  Parliament  passed  the  Boston  Port  Bill,  which 
locked  up  the  harbor  of  that  town,  destroyed  for  the 
time  her  commerce,  and  soon  brought  on  the  actual 
bloodshed  of  the  Revolution. 

Meantime  the  ministry  also  attended  to  Frank 
lin's  case.  The  Privy  Council  sent  word  to  Franklin 
that  it  was  ready  to  take  up  the  petition  of  the 
Massachusetts  Assembly  asking  for  the  removal  of 
Governor  Hutchinson,  and  required  his  presence  as 
the  colony's  agent.  He  found  that  Hutchinson  and 
Oliver  had  secured  as  counsel  Alexander  Wedder- 
burn,  a  Scotch  barrister,  afterwards  most  successful 
in  securing  political  preferment,  and  ending  his 
career  as  Lord  Rosslyn.  Franklin  had  no  counsel, 
and  asked  for  a  postponement  of  three  weeks  to 
obtain  legal  aid  and  prepare  his  case,  which  was 
granted. 

The  day  fixed  for  the  hearing  aroused  great  ex 
pectations.  An  unprecedented  number  of  the  mem 
bers  of  the  Privy  Council  attended.  The  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  Burke,  Dr.  Priestley,  Izard,  Lee,  and 
many  other  distinguished  persons,  friends  or  oppo 
nents  of  Franklin,  crowded  into  the  chamber.  The 
members  of  the  Privy  Council  sat  at  a  long  table,  and 
every  one  else  had  to  stand  as  a  mark  of  respect. 
The  room  was  one  of  those  apartments  which  tour 
ists  are  often  shown  in  palaces  in  Europe,  somewhat 

254 


DIFFICULTIES  AND   FAILURE   IN   ENGLAND 

like  a  large  drawing-room  with  an  open  fireplace  at 
one  end.  The  fireplace  projected  into  the  room, 
and  in  one  of  the  recesses  at  the  side  of  it  Franklin 
stood,  not  far  behind  Lord  Gower,  president  of  the 
Council,  who  had  his  back  to  the  fireplace. 

Franklin's  astute  counsel,  John  Dunning,  a  famous 
barrister,  afterwards  Lord  Ashburton,  told  him  that 
his  peace  and  love  theory  was  not  a  very  good 
ground  to  rest  his  case  on  before  the  Council.  It 
would  be  well  not  to  use  the  Hutchinson  letters  at 
all,  or  refer  to  them  as  little  as  possible  ;  for  the 
Privy  Council  believed  every  word  in  them  to  be 
true,  and  the  passages  in  them  which  had  most  in 
flamed  the  colonists  were  the  very  ones  which  were 
most  acceptable  to  the  Council. 

So  Dunning  made  a  speech  in  which  he  said  that 
no  crime  or  offence  was  charged  against  Hutchinson 
and  Oliver ;  they  were  in  no  way  attacked  or  ac 
cused  ;  the  colonists  were  simply  asking  a  favor  of 
His  Majesty,  which  was  that  the  governor  and  the 
lieutenant-governor  had  become  so  distasteful  to  the 
people  that  it  would  be  good  policy  and  tend  to 
peace  and  quiet  to  remove  them. 

It  was  a  ridiculous  attempt,  of  course,  and  none 
knew  better  than  Dunning  that  there  was  not  the 
slightest  hope  of  success.  The  Privy  Council  would 
never  have  taken  up  the  petition,  it  would  have  slept 
in  the  dust  of  its  pigeon-hole,  if  the  council  had  not 
seen  in  it  a  way  of  attacking  Franklin.  Wedder- 
burn's  speech  was  the  event  awaited,  and  to  it  the 
Tories  looked  forward  as  to  a  cock-fight  or  a  bull- 
baiting. 

255 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

A  little  volume  published  in  England  and  to  be 
found  in  some  of  the  libraries  in  America  contains 
an  account  of  the  proceedings  and  gives  a  large  part 
of  Wedderburn's  speech.  He  has  been  most  abun 
dantly  abused  in  America  and  by  Whigs  in  England 
as  an  unprincipled  office-seeker  and  a  shallow  orator, 
with  no  other  talent  than  that  of  invective.  That  he 
was  successful  in  obtaining  office  and  rising  to  high 
distinction  as  an  ardent  Tory  cannot  be  denied,  and 
in  this  respect  he  did  not  differ  materially  from  others 
or  from  the  Whigs  themselves  when  they  had  their 
innings.  As  to  the  charge  of  shallowness,  it  is  not 
borne  out  by  his  speech  on  this  occasion.  Once 
concede  his  point  of  view  as  a  Tory,  and  the  speech 
is  a  very  clever  one. 

He  began  by  a  history  of  Hutchinson's  useful 
public  career  in  Massachusetts ;  and  there  is  no 
question  that  Hutchinson  had  been  a  most  valuable 
official ;  even  the  Massachusetts  people  themselves 
conceded  that.  The  difficulty  with  Hutchinson  was 
the  same  as  with  Wedderburn, — his  point  of  view 
was  not  ours.  Having  reviewed  Hutchinson,  he 
went  on  to  show  how  ridiculous  it  was  to  suppose 
that  he  alone  had  been  the  cause  of  sending  the 
troops  to  Boston,  and  in  this  he  was  again  probably 
right  The  home  government,  as  he  well  said,  had 
abundant  other  means  of  information  from  General 
Gage,  Sir  Francis  Bernard,  and  its  officials  all 
through  the  colonies  ;  and  he  concluded  this  part  of 
his  speech  with  the  point  that  Hutchinson,  by  the 
admission  of  Massachusetts  herself,  had  never  done 
anything  wrong  except  write  these  letters,  and  would 

256 


DIFFICULTIES   AND   FAILURE   IN   ENGLAND 

it  not  be  ridiculous  to  dismiss  a  man  for  giving  in 
formation  which  had  been  furnished  by  a  host  of 
others  ? 

Then  he  turned  his  attention  to  Franklin.  How 
had  he  obtained  those  letters  ?  And  here  it  must 
be  confessed  that  Franklin  was  in  a  scrape,  and  from 
the  Tory  point  of  view  was  fair  game.  He  could 
not  disclose  the  name  of  the  member  of  Parliament 
who  gave  them  to  him,  for  he  had  promised  not  to 
do  so,  and  even  without  this  promise  it  would  have 
been  wanton  cruelty  to  have  subjected  the  man  to 
the  ruin  and  disgrace  that  would  have  instantly 
fallen  upon  him.  Nothing  could  drag  this  secret 
from  Franklin.  He  refused  to  answer  questions  on 
the  subject,  and  it  is  a  secret  to  this  day,  as  it  is  also 
still  a  secret  who  was  the  mother  of  his  son.  Inge 
nious  persons  have  written  about  one  as  about  the 
other,  and  supposed  and  guessed  and  piled  up  prob 
abilities  to  no  purpose.  Franklin  told  the  world 
more  private  matters  than  is  usual  with  men  in  his 
position  ;  but  in  the  two  matters  on  which  he  had 
determined  to  withhold  knowledge  the  world  has 
sought  for  it  in  vain. 

Praiseworthy  as  his  conduct  may  have  been  in 
this  respect,  it  gave  his  opponents  an  advantage 
which  we  must  admit  they  were  entitled  to  take. 
If,  as  Wedderburn  put  it,  he  refused  to  tell  from 
whom  he  received  the  letters,  they  were  at  liberty  to 
suppose  the  worst,  and  the  worst  was  that  he  had 
obtained  them  by  improper  means  and  fraud. 

For  a  time  which  must  have  seemed  like  years  to 
Franklin,  Wedderburn  drew  out  and  played  on  this 
17  257 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

point  with  most  exasperating  skill.  Gentlemen  re 
spect  private  correspondence.  They  do  not  usually 
steal  people's  letters  and  print  them.  Even  a  foreign 
ambassador  on  the  outbreak  of  war  would  hardly  be 
justified  in  stealing  documents.  Must  he  not  have 
known  as  soon  as  the  letters  were  handed  to  him 
that  honorable  permission  to  use  them  could  be  ob 
tained  only  from  the  family  of  Whately  ?  Why  had 
he  chosen  to  bring  that  family  into  painful  notoriety 
and  one  of  them  within  a  step  of  being  murdered  ? 
He  had  sent  the  letters  to  Massachusetts  with  the 
address  removed  from  them,  and  he  was  here  sup 
porting  the  petition  with  nothing  but  copies  of  the 
letters.  He  would,  forsooth,  have  removed  from 
office  a  governor  in  the  midst  of  a  long  career  of 
usefulness  on  the  ground  of  letters  the  originals  of 
which  he  could  not  produce  and  which  he  dared 
not  tell  how  he  had  obtained. 

The  orator  went  on  to  cite  some  of  Franklin's  let 
ters  to  the  people  in  Massachusetts  encouraging 
them  in  their  opposition.  He  read  the  resolutions 
of  New  England  town  meetings,  and  gave  what, 
indeed,  was  a  truthful  description,  from  his  point  of 
view,  of  the  measures  taken  for  resistance  in  Amer 
ica.  Franklin  was  aspiring  to  be  Governor  of  Mas 
sachusetts  in  the  place  of  Hutchinson,  that  was  the 
secret  of  the  whole  affair,  he  said ;  and  as  for  that 
beautiful  argument  that  Hutchinson  and  Oliver  had 
incensed  the  mother  country  against  the  colonies, 
what  absurdity ! 

We  are  perpetually  told,  he  said,  of  men's  in 
censing  the  mother  country  against  the  colonies, 

258 


DIFFICULTIES  AND  FAILURE  IN  ENGLAND 

but  we  hear  nothing  of  the  vast  variety  of  acts 
which  have  been  made  use  of  to  incense  the  colo 
nies  against  the  mother  country,  setting  at  defiance 
the  king's  authority,  treating  Parliament  as  usurpers, 
pulling  down  the  houses  of  royal  officials  and  at 
tacking  their  persons,  burning  His  Majesty's  ships 
of  war,  and  denying  the  supreme  jurisdiction  of  the 
British  empire ;  and  yet  these  people  pretend  a 
great  concern  about  these  letters  as  having  a  ten 
dency  to  incense  the  parent  state  against  the  colo 
nies,  and  would  have  a  governor  turned  out  because 
he  reports  their  doings.  "  Was  it  to  confute  or  pre 
vent  the  pernicious  effect  of  these  letters  that  the 
good  men  of  Boston  have  lately  held  their  meetings, 
appointed  their  committees,  and  with  their  usual  mod 
eration  destroyed  the  cargo  of  three  British  ships?" 

While  this  ferocious  attack  was  being  delivered, — 
and  it  is  said  to  have  been  delivered  in  thundering 
tones,  emphasized  by  terrible  blows  of  the  orator's 
fist  on  a  cushion  before  him  on  the  table, — Franklin 
stood  with  head  erect,  unmoved,  and  without  the 
slightest  change  upon  his  face  from  the  beginning 
to  the  end.  When  all  was  over  he  went  out,  silent, 
dignified,  without  a  word  or  sign  to  any  one  except 
that,  as  he  passed  Dr.  Priestley,  he  secretly  pressed 
his  hand.  His  superb  nerves  and  physique  again 
raised  him  far  above  the  occasion. 

It  was  one  of  the  most  remarkable  traits  of  his 
wonderful  personality  that  in  all  the  great  trials  of 
his  life  he  could  give  a  dramatic  interest  and  force 
to  the  situation  which  in  the  end  turned  everything 
in  his  favor.  Burke  said  that  his  examination  be- 

259 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

fore  Parliament  reminded  him  of  a  master  examined 
by  a  parcel  of  school-boys ;  and  Whitefield  said  that 
every  answer  he  gave  made  the  questioner  appear 
insignificant.  In  his  much  severer  test  before  Wed- 
derburn  and  the  Privy  Council  he  was  defeated ;  but 
his  supreme  and  serene  manner  was  never  forgotten 
by  the  spectators,  and  will  live  forever  as  a  dramatic 
incident.  Pictures  have  been  painted  of  it,  for  it 
lends  itself  irresistibly  to  the  purposes  of  the  artist. 
In  these  pictures  Franklin  is  the  hero,  for  it  is  im 
possible,  from  an  artistic  point  of  view,  to  make  any 
one  else  the  hero  in  that  scene. 

The  petition  of  the  Massachusetts  Assembly  was, 
of  course,  rejected  with  contempt ;  Franklin  was  im 
mediately  deprived  of  his  office  of  postmaster  of  the 
colonies,  and  his  usefulness  as  a  colonial  agent  or  as 
a  diplomatist  was  at  an  end.  He  could  no  longer 
go  to  court  or  even  be  on  friendly  terms  with  the 
Tory  party  which  controlled  the  government ;  and 
from  this  time  on  he  was  compelled  to  associate 
almost  exclusively  with  the  opposition,  who  still 
continued  to  be  his  friends.  In  other  words,  from 
being  a  colonial  representative  he  had  become  a 
mere  party  man  or  party  politician  in  England,  and 
his  own  acts  had  brought  him  to  this  condition. 
While  in  a  position  which  was  essentially  diplomatic, 
he  had  chosen  to  write  anonymous  newspaper  arti 
cles  against  the  very  men  with  whom  he  was  com 
pelled  to  carry  on  his  diplomatic  negotiations. 
They  naturally  watched  their  opportunity  to  destroy 
him  ;  and  his  conduct  with  regard  to  the  Hutchinson 
letters  gave  it  to  them. 

260 


DIFFICULTIES   AND   FAILURE   IN   ENGLAND 

He  fully  realized  his  situation,  and  made  prepara 
tions  to  return  to  Philadelphia.  He  was,  in  fact,  in 
danger  of  arrest ;  and  the  government  had  sent  to 
America  for  the  originals  of  some  of  his  letters  on 
which  to  base  a  prosecution  for  treason.  But  when 
it  became  known  that  the  first  Continental  Congress 
was  called  to  meet  in  September,  he  was  persuaded 
to  remain,  as  the  Congress  might  have  business  for 
him  to  transact  He  still  believed  that  all  difficulties 
would  be  finally  settled.  He  did  not  think  that 
there  would  be  war ;  and  this  belief  may  have  been 
caused  partly  by  his  conviction  of  the  utter  folly  of 
such  a  war  and  partly  because  it  was  impossible  for 
him  to  get  full  and  accurate  information  of  the  real 
state  of  mind  of  the  people  in  America.  He  had 
great  faith  in  a  change  of  ministry.  If  the  Ameri 
cans  refused  for  another  year  to  buy  British  goods, 
there  would  be  such  a  clamor  from  the  merchants 
and  manufacturers  that  the  Whigs  would  ride  into 
power  and  colonial  rights  be  safe. 

He  remained  until  the  following  spring,  without 
being  able  to  accomplish  anything,  but  he  caught  at 
several  straws.  Lord  Chatham,  who,  as  William 
Pitt,  had  conquered  Canada  in  the  French  and  In 
dian  wars  and  laid  the  foundations  of  the  modern 
British  empire,  was  thoroughly  disgusted  at  the  con 
duct  of  the  administration  towards  America.  An 
old  man,  living  at  his  country-seat  within  a  couple 
of  hours'  drive  from  London,  and  suffering  severely 
at  times  from  the  gout,  he  nevertheless  aroused  him 
self  to  reopen  the  subject  in  the  House  of  Lords. 
He  sent  for  Franklin,  who  has  left  us  a  most  graphic 

261 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

account  of  the  great  man,  so  magnificent,  eloquent, 
and  gracious  in  his  declining  years. 

Franklin  went  over  the  whole  ground  with  him  ; 
but  the  aged  nobleman  who  had  been  such  a  con 
queror  of  nations  was  fond  of  having  everything  his 
own  way,  and  Franklin  confesses  that  he  was  so 
charmed  in  watching  the  wonderful  powers  of  his 
mind  that  he  cared  but  little  about  criticising  his 
plans.  His  lordship  raised  the  question  in  the 
House  of  Lords  in  a  grand  oration,  parts  of  which 
are  still  spoken  by  our  school-boys,  and  he  fol 
lowed  it  by  other  speeches.  He  was  for  withdraw 
ing  all  the  troops  from  the  colonies  and  restoring 
peace ;  but  his  oratory  had  no  more  effect  on 
Parliament  than  Franklin's  jokes. 

At  the  same  time  Lord  Howe,  brother  of  the 
General  Howe  who  was  afterwards  prominent  in  the 
war  against  the  colonies,  attempted  a  plan  of  paci 
fication  which  was  to  be  accomplished  through 
Franklin's  aid.  The  Howes  were  favorably  inclined 
towards  America.  Their  brother,  General  Viscount 
Howe,  had  been  very  popular  in  the  colonies,  was 
killed  at  Ticonderoga  in  1758  in  the  French  and 
Indian  war,  and  Massachusetts  had  erected  a  monu 
ment  to  his  memory  in  Westminster  Abbey. 

Lord  Howe's  object  was  to  secure  some  basis  of 
compromise  which  both  Franklin  and  the  ministry 
could  agree  upon,  an  essential  part  of  which  was 
that  his  lordship  was  to  be  sent  over  to  the  colonies 
as  a  special  commissioner  to  arrange  final  terms. 
The  negotiations  began  by  Franklin  being  asked  to 
play  chess  with  Lord  Howe's  sister,  and  he  was  also 

262 


DIFFICULTIES  AND   FAILURE   IN   ENGLAND 

approached  by  a  prominent  Quaker,  David  Barclay, 
and  by  his  old  friend,  Dr.  Fothergill.  There  were 
numerous  interviews,  and  Franklin  prepared  several 
papers  containing  conditions  to  which  he  thought 
the  colonies  would  agree.  Lord  Howe  promised 
him  high  rewards  in  case  of  success,  and  even  offered, 
as  an  assurance  of  the  good  things  to  come,  to  pay 
him  at  once  the  arrears  of  his  salary  as  agent  of 
Massachusetts. 

Whether  this  was  a  sincere  attempt  at  accommo 
dation  on  the  part  of  some  of  the  more  moderate 
of  the  Tories,  or  a  scheme  of  Lord  Howe's  private 
ambition,  or  a  mere  trap  for  Franklin,  has  never  been 
made  clear.  Franklin,  however,  rejected  all  the 
bribes  and  stood  on  the  safe  ground  of  terms  which 
he  knew  would  be  acceptable  in  America  ;  so  this 
attempt  also  came  to  naught. 

After  reading  the  long  account  Franklin  has  given 
of  these  negotiations,  and  the  innumerable  letters 
and  proposals  that  were  exchanged,  one  may  see 
many  causes  of  the  break  with  the  colonies, — igno 
rance,  blindness,  the  infatuation  of  the  king  or  of 
North  or  of  Townsend, — but  the  primary  cause  of 
all  is  the  one  given  at  the  end  by  Franklin, — cor 
ruption.  The  whole  British  government  of  that  time 
was  penetrated  through  and  through  with  a  vast 
system  of  bribery.  Statesmen  and  politicians  cared 
for  nothing  and  would  do  nothing  that  did  not  give 
them  offices  to  distribute.  That  was  one  of  the 
objects  of  Lord  Howe's  scheme.  Dr.  Fothergill 
was  intimate  with  all  the  governing  class,  and  he 
said  to  Franklin,  "  Whatever  specious  pretences  are 

263 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

offered,  they  are  hollow  ;  to  get  a  larger  field  on 
which  to  fatten  a  herd  of  worthless  parasites  is  all 
that  is  regarded."  England  lost  her  colonies  by 
corruption,  and  she  could  not  have  built  up  her 
present  vast  colonial  empire  unless  corruption  had 
been  abolished 

At  the  end  of  April  Franklin  set  out  on  his  re 
turn  to  Philadelphia,  and  there  was  some  question 
whether  he  would  not  be  arrested  before  he  could 
start.  He  used  some  precautions  in  getting  away 
as  quietly  as  possible,  and  sailed  from  Portsmouth 
unmolested. 

He  still  believed  that  there  would  be  no  war,  and 
fully  expected  to  return  in  October  with  instructions 
from  the  Continental  Congress  that  would  end  the 
controversy.  His  ground  for  this  belief  seems  to 
have  been  the  old  one  that  the  hostility  in  England 
towards  America  was  purely  a  ministerial  or  party 
question,  and  would  be  overthrown  by  the  refusal 
of  the  colonists  to  buy  British  goods.  But  on  his 
arrival  in  Philadelphia  on  the  5th  of  May  he  heard 
of  the  battle  of  Lexington,  and  never  after  that  en 
tertained  much  hope  of  a  peaceful  accommodation. 


264 


VIII 

AT    HOME    AGAIN 

FRANKLIN'S  wife  had  died  while  he  was  in  Eng 
land,  and  his  daughter,  Mrs.  Sarah  Bache,  was  now 
mistress  of  his  new  house,  which  had  been  built 
during  his  absence.  The  day  after  his  arrival  the 
Assembly  made  him  one  of  its  deputies  in  the  Con 
tinental  Congress  which  was  soon  to  meet  in  Phila 
delphia.  For  the  next  eighteen  months  (from  his 
arrival  on  the  5th  of  May,  1775,  until  October  26, 
1776,  when  he  sailed  for  France)  every  hour  of  his 
time  seems  to  have  been  occupied  with  labors  which 
would  have  been  enough  for  a  man  in  his  prime, 
but  for  one  seventy  years  old  were  a  heavy  burden. 

He  was  made  Postmaster- General  of  the  united 
colonies,  and  prepared  a  plan  for  a  line  of  posts 
from  Maine  to  Georgia.  He  dropped  all  his  con 
servatism  and  became  very  earnest  for  the  war,  but 
was  humorous  and  easy-going  about  everything. 
He  had,  of  course,  the  privilege  of  franking  his  own 
letters;  but  instead  of  the  usual  form,  "Free.  B. 
Franklin,"  he  would  mark  them  "B  free  Franklin." 
He  prepared  a  plan  or  constitution  for  the  union  of 
the  colonies,  which  will  be  considered  hereafter. 
Besides  his  work  in  Congress,  he  was  soon  made  a 
member  of  the  Pennsylvania  Legislature,  and  was 
on  the  Committee  of  Safety  which  was  preparing 

265 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

the  defences  of  the  province,  and  was,  in  effect,  the 
executive  government  in  place  of  the  proprietary 
governor.  From  six  to  nine  in  the  morning  he  was 
with  this  committee,  and  from  nine  till  four  in  the 
afternoon  he  attended  the  session  of  Congress.  He 
assisted  in  devising  plans  for  obstructing  the  channel 
of  the  Delaware  River,  and  the  chevaux-de-frise,  as 
they  were  called,  which  were  placed  in  the  water 
were  largely  of  his  design. 

It  was  extremely  difficult  for  the  Congress  to  ob 
tain  gunpowder  for  the  army.  The  colonists  had 
always  relied  on  Europe  for  their  supply,  and  were 
unaccustomed  to  manufacturing  it.  Franklin  sug 
gested  that  they  should  return  to  the  use  of  bows 
and  arrows  : 

"  These  were  good  weapons  not  wisely  laid  aside  :  ist.  Because  a 
man  may  shoot  as  truly  with  a  bow  as  with  a  common  musket.  2dly. 
He  can  discharge  four  arrows  in  the  time  of  charging  and  discharging 
one  bullet.  3dly.  His  object  is  not  taken  from  his  view  by  the  smoke 
of  his  own  side.  4thly.  A  flight  of  arrows  seen  coming  upon  them, 
terrifies  and  disturbs  the  enemies'  attention  to  their  business.  5thly. 
An  arrow  striking  any  part  of  a  man  puts  him  hors  de  combat  till  it 
is  extracted.  6thly.  Bows  and  arrows  are  more  easily  provided  every 
where  than  muskets  and  ammunition." 

This  suggestion  seems  less  strange  when  we  re 
member  that  the  musket  of  that  time  was  a  smooth 
bore  and  comparatively  harmless  at  three  hundred 
yards. 

His  letters  to  his  old  friends  in  England  were  full 
of  resentment  against  the  atrocities  of  the  British 
fleet  and  army,  especially  the  burning  of  the  town 
of  Portland,  Maine.  It  was  at  this  time  that  he 

266 


, 


FRANKLIN'S    LETTER   TO   STRAHAN 


AT   HOME  AGAIN 

wrote  his  famous  letter  to  his  old  London  friend, 
Mr.  Strahan,  a  reproduction  of  which,  taken  from  the 
copy  at  the  State  Department,  Washington,  is  given 
in  this  volume.  It  is  a  most  curiously  worded,  half- 
humorous  letter,  and  the  most  popular  one  he  ever 
wrote.  It  has  been  reprinted  again  and  again,  and 
fac-similes  of  it  have  appeared  for  a  hundred  years, 
some  of  them  in  school-books. 

He  could  have  desired  nothing  better  than  its  ap 
pearance  in  school-books.  One  of  his  pet  projects 
was  that  all  American  school-children  should  be 
taught  how  shockingly  unjust  and  cruel  Great 
Britain  had  been  to  her  colonies  ;  they  must  learn, 
he  said,  to  hate  her ;  and  while  he  was  in  France 
he  prepared  a  long  list  of  the  British  outrages  which 
he  considered  contrary  to  all  the  rules  of  civilized 
warfare.  He  intended  to  have  a  picture  of  each 
one  prepared  by  French  artists  and  sent  to  America, 
that  the  lesson  of  undying  hatred  might  be  burnt 
into  the  youthful  mind. 

In  the  autumn  of  1775  he  went  with  two  other 
commissioners  to  Washington's  army  before  Boston 
to  arrange  for  supplies  and  prepare  general  plans 
for  the  conduct  of  the  war.  In  the  following  March 
he  was  sent  to  Canada  with  Samuel  Chase  and 
Charles  Carroll,  of  Maryland,  to  win  over  the  Cana 
dians  to  the  side  of  the  revolted  colonies.  Charles 
Carroll's  brother  John,  a  Roman  Catholic  priest,  ac 
companied  them  at  the  request  of  the  members  of 
Congress,  who  hoped  that  he  would  be  able  to  influ 
ence  the  French  Canadian  clergy. 

It  was  a  terrible  journey  for  Franklin,  now  an  old 
267 


THE  TRITE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

man  ;  for  as  they  advanced  north  they  found  the 
ground  covered  with  snow  and  the  lakes  filled  with 
floating  ice.  They  spent  five  days  beating  up  the 
Hudson  in  a  little  sloop  to  Albany,  and  two  weeks 
after  they  had  started  they  reached  Lake  George. 
General  Schuyler,  who  lived  near  Albany,  accom 
panied  them  after  they  had  rested  at  his  house,  and 
assisted  in  obtaining  wagons  and  boats.  Franklin 
was  ill  with  what  he  afterwards  thought  was  an  in 
cipient  attack  of  the  gout  which  his  constitution 
wanted  strength  to  develop  completely.  At  Sara 
toga  he  made  up  his  mind  that  he  would  never  see 
his  home  again,  and  wrote  several  letters  of  farewell. 

But  by  the  care  and  assistance  of  John  Carroll,  the 
priest,  with  whom  he  contracted  a  life-long  friendship, 
he  was  able  to  press  on,  and  they  reached  the  south 
ern  end  of  Lake  George,  where  they  embarked  on  a 
large  flat-bottomed  boat  without  a  cabin,  and  sailed 
the  whole  length  of  the  lake  through  the  floating  ice 
in  about  a  day.  Their  boat  was  hauled  by  oxen 
across  the  land  to  Lake  Champlain,  and  after  a  delay 
of  five  days  they  embarked  again  amidst  the  floating 
ice.  Sailing  and  rowing,  sleeping  under  a  canvas 
cover  at  night,  and  going  ashore  to  cook  their  meals, 
they  made  the  upper  end  of  the  lake  in  about  four 
days,  and  another  day  in  wagons  brought  them  to 
Montreal. 

Their  mission  was  fruitless.  The  army  under 
General  Montgomery  which  had  invaded  the  coun 
try  had  been  unsuccessful  against  the  British,  had 
contracted  large  debts  with  the  Canadians  which  it 
was  unable  to  pay,  and  the  Canadians  would  not 

268 


AT  HOME  AGAfN 

join  in  the  Revolution.  So  Franklin  and  the  com 
missioners  were  compelled  to  return  without  having 
accomplished  anything. 

In  June,  17/6,  Franklin  was  made  a  member  of 
the  convention  which  framed  a  new  constitution  for 
Pennsylvania  to  supply  the  place  of  the  old  colonial 
charter  of  William  Penn,  and  he  was  engaged  in 
this  work  during  the  summer,  when  his  other  duties 
permitted  ;  but  of  this  more  hereafter.  At  the  same 
time  he  was  laboring  in  the  Congress  on  the  ques 
tion  of  declaring  independence.  He  was  in  favor 
of  an  immediate  declaration,  and  his  name  is  signed 
to  the  famous  instrument. 

During  this  same  summer  he  also  had  another 
conference  with  Lord  Howe,  who  had  arrived  in 
New  York  harbor  in  command  of  the  British  fleet, 
and  again  wanted  to  patch  up  a  peace.  He  failed, 
of  course,  for  he  had  authority  from  his  govern 
ment  only  to  receive  the  submission  of  the  colonies  ; 
and  he  was  plainly  told  by  Franklin  and  the  other 
commissioners  who  met  him  that  the  colonies  would 
make  no  treaty  with  England  except  one  that 
acknowledged  them  as  an  independent  nation. 


069 


IX 

THE    EMBASSY   TO    FRANCE   AND    ITS    SCANDALS 

FRANKLIN'S  most  important  duties  in  the  Conti 
nental  Congress  were  connected  with  his  member 
ship  of  the  "Secret  Committee,"  afterwards  known 
as  the  "  Committee  of  Correspondence."  It  was 
really  a  committee  on  foreign  relations,  and  had 
been  formed  for  the  purpose  of  corresponding  with 
the  friends  of  the  revolted  colonies  in  Europe  and 
securing  from  them  advice  and  assistance.  From 
appointing  agents  to  serve  this  committee  in  France 
or  England,  Franklin  was  soon  promoted  to  be  him 
self  one  of  the  agents  and  to  represent  in  France 
the  united  colonies  which  had  just  declared  their 
independence. 

On  September  26,  1776,  he  was  given  this  impor 
tant  mission,  not  by  the  mere  appointment  of  his 
own  committee,  but  by  vote  of  Congress.  He  was  to 
be  one  of  three  commissioners  of  equal  powers,  who 
would  have  more  importance  and  weight  than  the 
mere  agents  hitherto  sent  to  Europe.  The  news  re 
ceived  of  the  friendly  disposition  of  France  was  very 
encouraging,  and  it  was  necessary  that  envoys  should 
be  sent  with  full  authority  to  take  advantage  of  it. 
Silas  Deane,  who  had  already  gone  to  France  as  a 
secret  agent,  and  Thomas  Jefferson  were  elected  as 
Franklin's  fellow-commissioners.  The  ill  health  of 

270 


EMBASSY  TO   FRANCE  AND   ITS   SCANDALS 

Jefferson's  wife  compelled  him  to  decline,  and 
Arthur  Lee,  already  acting  as  an  agent  for  the 
colonies  in  Europe,  was  elected  in  his  place. 

When  the  result  of  the  first  ballot  taken  in  Con 
gress  showed  that  Franklin  was  elected,  he  is  said 
to  have  turned  to  Dr.  Rush,  sitting  near  him,  and 
remarked,  "I  am  old  and  good  for  nothing;  but  as 
the  storekeepers  say  of  their  remnants  of  cloth,  I 
am  but  a  fag  end,  you  may  have  me  for  what  you 
please." 

There  was,  however,  fourteen  more  years  of  labor 
in  the  "fag  end,"  as  he  called  himself;  and  the 
jest  was  one  of  those  appropriately  modest  remarks 
which  he  knew  so  well  how  to  make.  He  prob 
ably  looked  forward  with  not  a  little  satisfaction  to 
the  prospect  of  renewing  again  those  pleasures  of 
intercourse  with  the  learned  and  great  which  he  was 
so  capable  of  enjoying  and  which  could  be  found 
only  in  Europe.  His  reputation  was  already  greater 
in  France  than  in  England.  He  would  be  able  to 
see  the  evidences  of  it  as  well  as  increase  it  in  this 
new  and  delightful  field.  But  the  British  newspapers, 
of  course,  said  that  he  had  secured  this  appointment 
as  a  clever  way  of  escaping  from  the  collapse  of  the 
rebellion  which  he  shrewdly  foresaw  was  inevitable. 

On  October  26,  1776,  he  left  Philadelphia  very 
quietly  and,  accompanied  by  his  two  grandsons, 
William  Temple  Franklin  and  Benjamin  Franklin 
Bache,  drove  some  fifteen  miles  down  the  river  to 
Marcus  Hook,  where  the  "Reprisal,"  a  swift  war- 
vessel  of  the  revolted  colonies,  awaited  him.  She 
set  sail  immediately  and  got  out  of  the  river  into  the 

271 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

ocean  as  quickly  as  possible,  for  the  British  desired 
nothing  better  than  to  capture  this  distinguished 
envoy  to  the  court  of  France.  Wickes,  the  captain, 
afterwards  famous  for  the  prizes  he  took  from  the 
British,  knew  that  he  must  run  the  gauntlet  of  the 
cruisers,  and  he  drove  his  little  vessel  with  all  sail 
through  the  November  gales,  making  Quiberon 
Bay,  on  the  coast  of  France,  in  thirty-three  days. 

It  was  a  rough,  dangerous,  exciting  voyage  ;  the 
venerable  philosopher  of  seventy  years  was  confined 
to  a  little,  cramped  cabin,  more  sick  and  distressed 
than  he  had  ever  been  before  on  the  ocean  ;  and 
yet  he  insisted  on  taking  the  temperature  of  the 
water  every  day  to  test  again  his  theory  of  the  Gulf 
Stream.  They  were  chased  by  cruisers,  but  the 
fleet  "  Reprisal"  could  always  turn  them  into  fading 
specks  on  the  horizon's  verge  ;  and  as  she  neared  the 
coast  of  France  she  fell  in  with  some  good  luck, — 
two  British  vessels  loaded  with  lumber,  wine,  brandy, 
and  flaxseed,  which  were  duly  brought  to  and  car 
ried  into  a  French  port  to  be  sold.  The  "  Reprisal" 
had  on  board  a  small  cargo  of  indigo,  which,  with 
the  prizes,  was  to  go  towards  paying  the  expense  of 
the  mission  to  France.  In  this  simple  and  homely 
way  were  the  colonies  beginning  their  diplomatic 
relations. 

The  French  people  received  Franklin  with  an 
outburst  of  enthusiasm  which  has  never  been  given 
by  them  to  any  other  American.  So  weak  from  the 
sickness  of  the  voyage  that  he  could  scarcely  stand, 
the  old  man  was  overwhelmed  with  attention, — a 
grand  dinner  at  Nantes,  an  invitation  to  a  country 

272 


EMBASSY  TO   FRANCE  AND   ITS   SCANDALS 

house  where  he  expected  to  find  rest,  but  had  none 
from  the  ceaseless  throng  of  visitors.  The  unex 
pected  and  romantic  manner  of  his  arrival,  dodging 
the  cruisers  and  coming  in  with  two  great  merchant 
men  as  prizes,  aroused  the  greatest  interest  and  de 
light.  It  was  like  a  brilliant  stroke  in  a  play  or  a 
tale  from  the  "  Arabian  Nights,"  worthy  of  French 
imagination  ;  and  here  this  wonderful  American  from 
the  woods  had  made  it  an  accomplished  fac^ 

The  enthusiasm  of  this  reception  never  abated, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  soon  became  extravagant 
worship,  which  continued  during  the  nine  years  of 
his  residence  in  France.  Even  on  his  arrival  they 
were  exaggerating  everything  about  him,  adding 
four  years  to  his  age  to  make  his  adventures  seem 
more  wonderful ;  and  Paris  waited  in  as  much  rest 
less  expectation  for  his  arrival  as  if  he  had  been  a 
king. 

Beneath  all  this  lay,  of  course,  the  supreme  satis 
faction  with  which  the  French  contemplated  the  re 
volt  of  the  colonies  and  the  inevitable  weakening  of 
their  much-hated  enemy  and  rival,  Great  Britain  ; 
and  they  had  made  up  their  minds  to  assist  in  this 
dismemberment  to  the  utmost  of  their  ability.  They 
were  already  familiar  with  Franklin  ;  his  name  was 
a  household  word  in  France  ;  his  brilliant  discovery 
of  the  nature  of  lightning  appealed  strongly  to  every 
imagination;  ''Poor  Richard"  had  been  translated 
for  them,  and  its  shrewd  economy  and  homely  wis 
dom  had  been  their  delight  for  years.  Its  author 
was  the  synonyme  and  personification  of  liberty, — 
that  liberty  which  they  were  just  beginning  to  rave 
is  273 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

about,  for  their  own  revolution  was  not  twenty 
years  away. 

It  interested  them  all  the  more  that  the  man  who 
represented  all  this  for  them,  and  whose  name 
seemed  to  be  really  a  French  one,  came  from  the 
horrible  wilderness  of  America,  the  home  of  inter 
minable  dark  forests,  filled  with  savage  beasts  and 
still  more  savage  men. 

France  at  that  time  was  the  gay,  pleasure-  and 
sensation-loving  France  which  had  just  been  living 
under  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV.  Sated  with  luxury 
and  magnificence,  with  much  intelligence  and  culture 
even  among  the  middle  classes,  there  was  no  novelty 
that  pleased  Frenchmen  more  than  something  which 
seemed  to  be  close  to  nature  ;  and  when  they  dis 
covered  that  this  exceedingly  natural  man  from  the 
woods  had  also  the  severe  and  serene  philosophy  of 
Cato,  Phocion,  Socrates,  and  the  other  sages  of  an 
tiquity,  combined  with  a  conversation  full  of  wit, 
point,  and  raillery  like  their  own,  it  is  not  surprising 
that  they  made  a  perpetual  joy  and  feast  over  him. 
It  was  so  delightful  for  a  lady  to  pay  him  a  pretty 
compliment  about  having  drawn  down  the  fire  from 
heaven,  and  have  him  instantly  reply  in  some  most 
apt  phrase  of  an  old  man's  gallantry ;  and  then  he 
never  failed  ;  there  seemed  to  be  no  end  to  his  re 
sources. 

Amidst  these  brilliant  surroundings  he  wore  for  a 
time  that  shocking  old  fur  cap  which  appears  in  one 
of  his  portraits  ;  and  although  his  biographers  earn 
estly  protest  that  he  was  incapable  of  such  affecta 
tion,  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  he  found 

274 


FRANKLIN    CANNOT    DIE 

(From  a  French  engraving) 


EMBASSY  TO   FRANCE  AND   ITS   SCANDALS 

that  it  intensified  the  character  the  French  people 
had  already  formed  of  him.  Several  writers  of  the 
time  speak  of  his  very  rustic  dress,  his  firm  but  free 
and  direct  manner  which  seemed  to  be  the  sim 
plicity  of  a  past  age.  But  if  he  was  willing  to  en 
courage  their  laudation  by  a  little  clever  acting,  he 
never  carried  it  too  far ;  and  there  is  no  evidence 
that  his  head  was  ever  turned  by  all  this  extrava 
gant  worship.  He  was  altogether  too  shrewd  to 
make  such  a  fatal  mistake.  He  knew  the  meaning 
and  real  value  of  it,  and  nursed  it  so  carefully  that 
he  kept  it  living  and  fresh  for  nine  years. 

So  he  went  to  live  in  Paris,  while  the  people  be 
gan  to  make  portraits,  medals,  and  busts  of  him, 
until  there  were  some  two  hundred  different  kinds  to 
be  set  in  rings,  watches,  snuff-boxes,  bracelets,  look 
ing-glasses,  and  other  articles.  Within  a  few  days 
after  his  arrival  it  was  the  fashion  for  every  one  to 
have  a  picture  of  him  on  their  mantel-piece.  He 
selected  for  his  residence  the  little  village  of  Passy, 
about  two  miles  from  the  heart  of  Paris,  and  not  too 
far  from  the  court  at  Versailles.  There  for  nine 
years  his  famous  letters  were  dated,  and  Franklin  at 
Passy,  with  his  friends,  their  gardens  and  their  wit, 
was  a  subject  of  interest  and  delight  to  a  whole 
generation  of  the  civilized  world. 

M.  Ray  de  Chaumont  had  there  a  large  establish 
ment  called  the  Hotel  de  Valentinois.  In  part  of  it 
he  lived  himself,  and,  to  show  his  devotion  to  the 
cause  of  America,  he  insisted  that  Franklin  should 
occupy  the  rest  of  it  as  his  home  and  for  the  busi 
ness  of  the  embassy  free  of  rent.  This  arrangement 

275 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

Franklin  accepted  in  his  easy  way,  and  nothing 
more  was  thought  of  it  until  precise  John  Adams 
arrived  from  Massachusetts  and  was  greatly  shocked 
to  find  an  envoy  of  the  United  States  living  in  a 
Frenchman's  house  without  paying  board 

Pleasantly  situated,  with  charming  neighbors  who 
never  wearied  of  him,  enjoying  the  visits  and  im 
proving  conversation  of  the  great  men  of  the  learned 
and  scientific  worlds,  caressed  at  court,  exchanging 
repartees  and  flirtations  with  clever  women,  op 
pressed  at  times  with  terrible  anxiety  for  his  coun 
try,  but  slowly  winning  success,  and  dining  out  six 
nights  of  nearly  every  week  when  he  was  not  dis 
abled  by  the  gout,  the  old  Philadelphia  printer  can 
not  be  said  to  have  fallen  upon  very  evil  days. 

His  position  was  just  the  reverse  of  what  it  had 
been  in  England,  where  his  task  had  been  almost 
an  impossible  one.  In  France  everything  was  in  his 
favor.  There  were  no  Wedderburns  or  Tory  minis 
ters,  no  powerful  political  party  opposed  to  his  pur 
poses,  and  no  liberal  party  with  which  he  might  be 
tempted  to  take  sides.  The  whole  nation — king, 
nobles,  and  people — was  with  him.  He  had  only  to 
suggest  what  was  wanted  ;  and,  indeed,  a  great  deal 
was  done  without  even  his  suggestion. 

This  condition  of  affairs  precluded  the  possibility 
of  his  accomplishing  any  great  feat  in  diplomacy. 
The  tide  being  all  in  his  favor,  he  had  only  to  take 
advantage  of  it  and  abstain  from  anything  that 
would  check  its  flow.  Instead  of  the  aggressive 
course  he  had  seen  fit  to  follow  in  England,  he  must 
avoid  everything  which  in  the  least  resembled  ag- 

276 


EMBASSY  TO   FRANCE  AND  ITS  SCANDALS 

gression.  He  must  be  complaisant,  popular,  and 
encourage  the  universal  feeling  instead  of  opposing 
it,  and  this  part  he  certainly  played  to  perfection. 

He  was  by  no  means  the  sole  representative  of 
his  country  in  France,  and  considerable  work  had 
been  accomplished  before  he  arrived.  In  fact,  the 
French  were  ready  to  do  the  work  themselves  with 
out  waiting  for  a  representative.  When  Franklin 
was  leaving  London  in  1775  the  French  ambassador 
called  upon  him  and  gave  him  to  understand  in  no 
doubtful  terms  that  France  would  be  on  the  side  of 
the  colonies. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose,  as  has  sometimes  been 
done,  that  some  one  person  suggested  to  the  French 
government,  or  that  Franklin  himself  suggested  or 
urged,  the  idea  of  weakening  England  by  assist 
ing  America.  It  was  a  policy  the  wisdom  of  which 
was  obvious  to  every  one.  As  early  as  the  time 
of  the  Stamp  Act,  Louis  XV.  sent  De  Kalb  to 
America  to  watch  the  progress  of  the  rebellion,  and 
to  foment  it.  The  English  themselves  foresaw  and 
dreaded  a  French  alliance  with  the  colonies.  Lord 
Howe  referred  to  it  in  his  last  interview  with  Frank 
lin  ;  Beaumarchais  argued  about  it  in  long  letters  to 
the  king  ;  it  was  favored  by  the  Count  d'Artois,  the 
Duke  of  Orleans,  and  the  Count  de  Broglie,  not  to 
mention  young  Lafayette  ;  and  the  colonists  them 
selves  thought  of  it  as  soon  as  they  thought  of 
resistance.  The  French  king,  Louis  XVI.,  who,  as 
an  absolute  monarch,  disliked  rebellion,  hesitated 
for  a  time  ;  but  he  was  won  over  by  Vergennes  and 
Beaumarchais. 

277 


THE   TRUE  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

France  had  just  come  out  of  a  long  war  with 
England  in  which  she  had  lost  Canada  and  valuable 
possessions  in  the  East  and  West  Indies.  England 
held  the  port  of  Dunkirk,  on  French  soil,  and 
searched  French  ships  whenever  she  pleased.  France 
was  humiliated  and  full  of  resentment.  She  had 
failed  to  conquer  the  English  colonies  ;  but  it  would 
be  almost  as  good  and  some  slight  revenge  if  she 
deprived  England  of  them  by  helping  them  to 
secure  their  own  independence.  It  would  cripple 
English  commerce,  which  was  rapidly  driving  that 
of  France  from  the  ocean.  England  had  in  1768 
helped  the  Corsican  rebels  against  France,  and  that 
was  a  good  precedent  for  France  helping  the  Amer 
ican  rebels  against  England. 

In  the  autumn  of  1775  the  Secret  Committee  of 
Congress  had  sent  Thomas  Story  to  London,  Hol 
land,  and  France  to  consult  with  persons  friendly  to 
the  colonies.  He  was  also  to  deliver  a  letter  to  Ar 
thur  Lee,  who  had  taken  Franklin's  place  as  agent 
of  Massachusetts  in  London,  and  this  letter  in 
structed  Lee  to  learn  the  disposition  of  foreign 
powers.  A  similar  letter  was  to  be  delivered  to  Mr. 
Dumas  in  Holland,  and  soon  after  Story's  departure 
M.  Penet,  a  French  merchant  of  Nantes,  was  sent 
to  France  to  buy  ammunition,  arms,  and  clothing. 

A  few  months  afterwards,  in  the  beginning  of  1 776, 
the  committee  sent  to  Paris  Silas  Deane,  of  Connec 
ticut,  who  had  served  in  the  Congress.  He  was 
more  of  a  diplomatic  representative  than  any  of  the 
others,  and  was  instructed  to  procure,  if  possible,  an 
audience  with  Vergennes,  the  French  Minister  of 

278 


EMBASSY  TO   FRANCE  AND   ITS   SCANDALS 

Foreign  Affairs,  suggest  the  establishment  of  friendly 
relations,  the  need  of  arms  and  ammunition,  and 
finally  lead  up  to  the  question  whether,  if  the  colo 
nies  declared  their  independence,  they  might  look 
upon  France  as  an  ally. 

Meantime  that  strange  character,  Beaumarchais, 
the  author  of  "The  Barber  of  Seville"  and  "The 
Marriage  of  Figaro,"  and  still  a  distinguished  light 
of  French  literature,  fired  by  the  general  enthusiasm 
for  the  Americans,  constituted  himself  their  agent 
and  ambassador,  and  was  by  no  means  an  unimpor 
tant  one.  He  was  the  son  of  a  respectable  watch 
maker,  and  when  a  mere  youth  had  distinguished 
himself  by  the  invention  of  an  improvement  in 
escapements,  which  was  stolen  by  another  watch 
maker,  who  announced  it  as  his  own.  Beaumar 
chais  appealed  to  the  Academy  of  Sciences  in  a 
most  cleverly  written  petition,  and  it  decided  in  his 
favor.  Great  attention  had  been  drawn  to  him  by 
the  contest ;  he  appeared  at  court,  and  was  soon 
making  wonderful  little  watches  for  the  king  and 
queen ;  he  became  a  favorite,  the  familiar  friend  of 
the  king's  daughters,  and  his  career  as  an  adven 
turer,  courtier,  and  speculator  began.  A  most  won 
derful  genius,  typi^l  in  many  ways  of  his  century, 
few  men  have  ever  lived  who  could  play  so  many 
parts,  and  his  excellent  biographer,  Lomenie,  has 
summed  up  the  occupations  in  which  he  excelled  : 

"  Watch-maker,  musician,  song  writer,  dramatist,  comic  writer, 
man  of  fashion,  courtier,  man  of  business,  financier,  manufacturer, 
publisher,  ship-owner,  contractor,  secret  agent,  negotiator,  pam 
phleteer,  orator  on  certain  occasions,  a  peaceful  man  by  taste,  and 

279 


THE   TRUE  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

yet  always  at  law,  engaging,  like  Figaro,  in  every  occupation,  Beau- 
marchais  was  concerned  in  most  of  the  events,  great  or  small,  which 
preceded  the  Revolution." 

He  traded  all  over  the  world,  and  made  three  or 
four  fortunes  and  lost  them  ;  he  had  at  times  forty 
vessels  of  his  own  on  the  ocean,  and  his  private 
man-of-war  assisted  the  French  navy  at  the  battle 
of  Grenada.  In  fact,  he  was  like  his  great  con 
temporary,  Voltaire,  who,  besides  being  a  dramatist, 
a  philosopher,  a  man  of  letters,  and  a  reformer,  was 
one  of  the  ablest  business  men  of  France,  a  ship 
owner,  contractor,  and  millionaire. 

The  resemblance  of  Franklin  to  these  two  men  is 
striking.  He  showed  the  same  versatility  of  talents, 
though  perhaps  in  less  degree.  He  had  the  same 
strange  ability  to  excel  at  the  same  time  in  both  lit 
erary  and  practical  affairs,  he  had  very  much  the 
same  opinion  on  religion,  and  his  morals,  like  Vol 
taire's,  were  somewhat  irregular.  When  we  connect 
with  this  his  wonderful  reputation  in  France,  the 
adoration  of  the  people,  and  the  strange  way  in 
which  during  his  residence  in  Paris  he  became  part 
of  the  French  nation,  we  are  almost  led  to  believe 
that  through  some  hidden  process  the  causes  which 
produced  Franklin  must  have  beeji  largely  of  French 
origin.  He  is,  indeed,  more  French  than  English, 
and  seems  to  belong  with  Beaumarchais  and  Voltaire 
rather  than  with  Chatham,  Burke,  or  Priestley. 

But  to  return  to  Beaumarchais  and  the  Revolu 
tion.  He  was  carried  away  by  the  importance  of 
the  rebellion  in  America,  and  devoted  his  whole 
soul  to  bringing  France  to  the  assistance  of  the 

280 


EMBASSY  TO   FRANCE  AND   ITS  SCANDALS 

L 

colonies.  He  argued  with  the  court  and  the  king, 
visited  London  repeatedly  in  the  secret  service  of 
his  government,  and  became  more  than  ever  con 
vinced  of  the  weakness  of  Great  Britain. 

The  plan  which  the  French  ministry  new  adopted 
was  to  aid  the  colonies  in  secret  and  avoid  for  the 
present  an  open  breach  with  England.  Arms  were 
to  be  sent  to  one  of  the  French  West  India  islands, 
where  the  governor  would  find  means  of  delivering 
them  to  the  Americans.  Soon,  however,  this  method 
was  changed  as  too  dangerous,  and  in  place  of  it 
Beaumarchais  established  in  Paris  a  business  house, 
which  he  personally  conducted  under  the  name  of 
Roderique  Hortalez  &  Company.  He  did  this  at 
the  request  of  the  government,  and  his  biographer, 
De  Lomenie,  has  given  us  a  statement  of  the  ar 
rangement  in  language  which  he  assumes  Vergennes 
must  have  used  in  giving  instructions  to  Beaumar 
chais  : 

"  The  operation  must  essentially  in  the  eyes  of  the  English  govern 
ment,  and  even  in  the  eyes  of  the  Americans,  have  the  appearance 
of  an  individual  speculation,  to  which  the  French  ministers  are 
strangers.  That  it  may  be  so  in  appearance,  it  must  also  be  so,  to  a 
certain  point,  in  reality.  We  will  give  a  million  secretly,  we  will  try 
to  induce  the  court  of  Spain  to  unite  with  us  in  this  affair,  and  supply 
you  on  its  side  with  an  equal  sum ;  with  these  two  millions  and  the 
co-operation  of  individuals  who  will  be  willing  to  take  part  in  your 
enterprise  you  will  be  able  to  found  a  large  house  of  commerce,  and 
at  your  own  risk  can  supply  America  with  arms,  ammunition,  articles 
of  equipment,  and  all  other  articles  necessary  for  keeping  up  the 
war.  Our  arsenals  will  give  you  arms  and  ammunition,  but  you 
shall  replace  them  or  shall  pay  for  them.  You  shall  ask  for  no 
money  from  the  Americans,  as  they  have  none  ;  but  you  shall  ask 
'  them  for  returns  in  products  of  their  soil,  and  we  will  help  you  to 
get  rid  of  them  in  this  country,  while  you  shall  grant  them,  on  your 

281 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

side,  every  facility  possible.  In  a  word,  the  operation,  after  being 
secretly  supported  by  us  at  the  commencement,  must  afterwards  feed 
and  support  itself;  but,  on  the  other  side,  as  we  reserve  to  ourselves 
the  right  of  favoring  or  discouraging  it,  according  to  the  require 
ments  of  our  policy,  you  shall  render  us  an  account  of  your  profits 
and  your  losses,  and  we  will  judge  whether  we  are  to  accord  you 
fresh  assistance,  or  give  you  an  acquittal  for  the  sums  previously 
granted."  (De  Lomenie's  Beaumarchais,  p.  273.) 

It  was  in  June,  1776,  that  Beaumarchais  started 
his  extraordinary  enterprise  in  the  Rue  Vieille  du 
Temple,  in  a  large  building  called  the  Hotel  de 
Hollande,  which  had  formerly  been  used  as  the  resi 
dence  of  the  Dutch  ambassador.  The  million  francs 
was  paid  to  him  by  the  French  government,  another 
million  by  Spain  in  September,  and  still  another 
million  by  France  in  the  following  year.  So  with 
the  greatest  hopefulness  and  delight  he  began  ship 
ping  uniforms,  arms,  ammunition,  and  all  sorts  of 
supplies  to  America.  He  had  at  times  great  diffi 
culty  in  getting  his  laden  ships  out  of  port.  The 
French  government  was  perfectly  willing  that  they 
should  go,  and  always  affected  to  know  nothing  about 
them.  But  Lord  Stormont,  the  British  ambassador, 
would  often  discover  their  destination  and  protest  in 
most  vigorous  and  threatening  language.  Then  the 
French  ministry  would  appear  greatly  surprised  and 
stop  the  ships.  This  process  was  repeated  during 
two  years, — a  curious  triangular,  half-masked  con 
test  between  Beaumarchais,  Lord  Stormont,  and  the 
ministry. 

"  If  government  caused  my  vessels  to  be  unloaded  in  one  port,  I 
sent  them  secretly  to  reload  at  a  distance  in  the  roads.  Were  they 
stopped  under  their  proper  names,  I  changed  them  immediately,  or 

282 


EMBASSY  TO   FRANCE  AND   ITS   SCANDALS 

made  pretended  sales,  and  put  them  anew  under  fictitious  commis 
sions.  Were  obligations  in  writing  exacted  from  my  captains  to  go 
nowhere  but  to  the  West  India  Islands,  powerful  gratifications  on 
my  part  made  them  yield  again  to  my  wishes.  Were  they  sent  to 
prison  on  their  return  for  disobedience,  I  then  doubled  their  grati 
fications  to  keep  their  zeal  from  cooling,  and  consoled  them  with 
gold  for  the  rigor  of  our  government." 

In  this  way  he  sent  to  the  colonies  within  a  year 
eight  vessels  with  supplies  worth  six  million  francs. 
Sometimes,  in  spite  of  all  efforts,  one  of  his  vessels 
with  a  valuable  cargo  was  obliged  to  sail  direct  to 
the  West  Indies,  and  could  go  nowhere  else.  In  one 
instance  of  this  sort  he  wrote  to  his  agent  Francy, 
in  America,  to  have  several  American  privateers  sent 
to  the  West  Indies  to  seize  the  vessel. 

"  My  captain  will  protest  violently,  and  will  draw  up  a  written 
statement  threatening  to  make  his  complaint  to  the  Congress.  The 
vessel  will  be  taken  where  you  are.  The  Congress  will  loudly  dis 
avow  the  action  of  the  brutal  privateer,  and  will  set  the  vessel  at 
liberty  with  polite  apologies  to  the  French  flag ;  during  this  time  you 
will  land  the  cargo,  fill  the  ship  with  tobacco,  and  send  it  back  to 
me  as  quickly  as  possible,  with  all  you  may  happen  to  have  ready 
to  accompany  it." 

Imagination  is  sometimes  a  very  valuable  quality 
in  practical  affairs,  and  this  neat  description  by  the 
man  of  letters  was  actually  carried  out  in  every 
detail  and  with  complete  success  by  his  agent  in 
America.  He  was  certainly  a  valuable  ambassador 
of  the  colonies,  this  wonderful  Beaumarchais  ;  but 
he  suffered  severely  for  his  devotion.  Under  his 
agreement  with  his  government,  the  government's 
outlay  was  to  be  paid  back  gradually  by  American 

283 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

produce  ;  but  Congress  would  not  send  the  produce, 
or  sent  it  so  slowly  that  Beaumarchais  was  threat 
ened  with  ruin,  and  suffered  the  torturing  anxiety 
which  comes  with  the  conviction  that  those  for 
whom  you  are  making  the  greatest  sacrifices  are 
indifferent  and  incapable  of  gratitude. 

It  was  in  vain  that  he  appealed  to  Congress  ;  for 
Arthur  Lee  was  continually  informing  that  body 
that  he  was  a  fraud  and  his  claims  groundless,  be 
cause  the  French  government  intended  that  all  the 
supplies  sent  through  Hortalez  &  Co.  should  be  a 
free  gift  to  the  revolted  colonies.  Lee  may  have 
sincerely  believed  this  ;  but  it  was  very  unfortunate, 
because  more  than  two  years  elapsed  before  Con 
gress  became  convinced  that  the  supplies  were  not 
entirely  a  present,  and  voted  Beaumarchais  its 
thanks  and  some  of  the  money  he  claimed.  A  large 
part  of  his  claims  were  never  paid.  For  fifty  years 
there  was  a  controversy  about  "the  lost  million," 
and  for  its  romantic  history  the  reader  is  referred 
to  De  Lomenie,  Durand's  "  New  Material  for  the 
History  of  the  American  Revolution,"  and  Dr. 
Stille's  "  Beaumarchais  and  the  Lost  Million." 

But  he  was  not  the  only  person  who  suffered. 
The  truth  is  that  the  whole  arrangement  made  by 
Congress  for  conducting  the  business  in  France  was 
ridiculously  inefficient,  not  to  say  cruel  and  inhu 
man.  That  we  got  most  important  aid  from  France 
was  due  to  the  eagerness  and  efforts  of  the  French 
themselves,  and  not  to  anything  done  by  Congress. 

Franklin  and  his  two  fellow-commissioners,  Silas 
Deane  and  Arthur  Lee,  had  equal  powers.  They 

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EMBASSY  TO   FRANCE  AND   ITS   SCANDALS 

had  to  conduct  a  large  and  complicated  business 
involving  the  expenditure  of  millions  of  dollars  with 
out  knowing  exactly  where  the  millions  were  to  come 
from,  and  with  no  regular  system  of  accounts  or 
means  of  auditing  and  investigating  ;  their  arrange 
ments  had  to  be  largely  kept  secret ;  they  expended 
money  in  lump  sums  without  always  knowing  what 
use  was  made  of  it ;  they  were  obliged  to  rely  on  the 
assistance  of  all  sorts  of  people, — naval  agents,  com 
mercial  agents,  and  others  for  whose  occupation  there 
was  no  exact  name ;  and  they  had  no  previous  expe 
rience  or  precedents  to  guide  them.  On  their  ar 
rival  at  Paris,  the  three  commissioners  found  a  fourth 
person,  Beaumarchais,  well  advanced  in  his  work, 
and  accomplishing  in  a  practical  way  rather  more 
than  any  of  them  could  hope  to  do.  Moreover, 
Beaumarchais' s  arrangement  was  necessarily  so  se 
cret  that  though  they  knew  in  a  general  way,  as  did 
Lord  Stormont  and  all  Paris,  what  he  was  doing,  yet 
only  one  of  them,  Deane,  was  ever  fully  admitted  into 
the  secret,  and  it  is  probable  that  the  other  two  died 
without  having  fully  grasped  the  real  nature  and 
conditions  of  his  service. 

That  three  joint  commissioners  of  equal  powers 
shoi^Ronduct  such  an  enormous  business  of  expen 
diture  and  credit  for  a  series  of  years  without  be 
coming  entangled  in  the  most  terrible  suspicions  and 
bitter  quarrels  was  in  the  nature  of  things  impos 
sible.  The  result  was  that  the  history  of  their  horrible 
disputes  and  accusations  against  one  another  is  more 
voluminous  than  the  history  of  their  services.  Deane, 
who  did  more  actual  work  than  any  one  except 

285 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

Beaumarchais,  was  thoroughly  and  irretrievably 
ruined.  Arthur  Lee,  who  accomplished  very  little 
besides  manufacturing  suspicions  and  charges,  has 
left  behind  him  a  reputation  for  malevolence  which 
no  one  will  envy ;  Beaumarchais  suffered  tortures 
which  he  considered  almost  equivalent  to  ruin,  and 
his  reputation  was  not  entirely  rescued  until  nearly 
half  a  century  after  his  death  ;  and  Franklin  came 
nearer  than  ever  before  in  his  life  to  sinking  his 
great  fame  in  an  infamy  of  corruption,  for  the  at 
tacks  made  upon  him  by  Arthur  Lee  were  a  hundred 
times  worse  than  those  of  Wedderburri. 

It  was  a  terrible  ordeal  for  the  four  men, — those 
two  years  before  France  made  an  open  alliance  with 
the  colonies, — and  I  will  add  a  few  other  circum 
stances  which  contributed  variety  to  their  situation. 
Ralph  Izard,  of  South  Carolina,  a  very  passionate 
man,  was  appointed  by  the  wise  Congress  an  envoy 
to  the  Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany.  He  never  went  to 
Tuscany  for  the  simple  reason  that  the  duke  could 
not  receive  him  without  becoming  embroiled  with 
Great  Britain  ;  so  he  was  obliged  to  remain  in  Paris, 
where  he  assisted  Lee  in  villifying  Deane,  Franklin, 
and  Beaumarchais,  and  his  letters  home  were  full  of 
attacks  on  their  characters.  3b 

He  was  not  a  member  of  the  commission  which 
had  charge  of  French  affairs,  and  yet,  in  the  loose 
way  in  which  all  the  foreign  business  of  the  colonies 
was  being  managed,  it  was  perhaps  natural  that,  as 
an  energetic  and  able  man  and  an  American,  he 
should  wish  to  be  consulted  occasionally  by  Frank 
lin  and  Deane.  In  a  certain  way  he  was  directly 

286 


EMBASSY  TO   FRANCE   AND   ITS   SCANDALS 

connected  with  them,  for  he  had  to  obtain  money 
from  them  for  some  of  his  expenses  incurred  in  at 
tempting  to  go  to  Tuscany,  and  on  this  subject  he 
quarrelled  with  Franklin,  who  thought  that  he  had 
used  too  much.  He  was  also  obliged  to  apply  to 
Franklin  for  certain  papers  to  enable  him  to  make  a 
commercial  treaty  with  Tuscany,  and  these,  he  said, 
Franklin  had  delayed  supplying.  He  complained 
further  of  Franklin's  neglect  to  answer  his  letters 
and  obstructing  his  means  of  sending  information 
to  America. 

Franklin  afterwards  admitted  that  he  might  have 
saved  himself  from  Izard's  enmity  by  showing  him 
a  little  attention  ;  his  letters  to  both  Izard  and  Lee 
were  very  stinging ;  in  fact,  they  were  the  severest 
that  he  ever  wrote  ;  and  Izard's  charge  that  he  de 
layed  answering  letters  was  probably  true,  for  we 
know  from  other  sources  that  he  was  never  orderly 
in  business  matters.  At  any  rate,  the  result  of  his 
neglect  of  Izard  was  that  that  gentleman's  hatred 
for  him  steadily  increased  to  the  end  of  his  life,  and 
years  after  Izard  had  left  Paris  he  is  described  as 
unable  to  contain  himself  at  the  mention  of  Frank 
lin's  name,  bursting  out  into  passionate  denunciation 
of  him  like  the  virtuous  old  ladies  we  are  told  of  in 
Philadelphia. 

Then  there  was  William  Lee,  brother  of  Arthur 
Lee,  appointed  envoy  to  Berlin  and  Vienna,  which 
places  he  could  not  reach  for  the  same  reason  that 
prevented  Izard  from  going  to  Tuscany.  So  he  also 
stayed  in  Paris,  assisted  his  brother  Arthur,  became 
a  commercial  agent,  and  had  no  love  for  either 

287 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

Franklin  or  Deane.  There  was  also  Dr.  Edward 
Bancroft,  who  had  no  regular  appointment,  but 
flitted  back  and  forth  between  London  and  Paris. 
He  was  intimate  with  Franklin,  assisted  Deane,  knew 
the  secrets  of  the  American  business  in  Paris,  which 
knowledge  Lee  tells  us  he  used  for  the  purpose  of 
speculating  in  London,  and  Bancroft  the  historian 
says  that  he  was  really  a  British  spy.  Thomas 
Morris,  a  younger  brother  of  Robert  Morris,  was  a 
commercial  agent  at  Nantes,  wrecked  himself  with 
drink,  and  started  what  came  near  being  a  serious 
dispute  between  Robert  Morris  and  Franklin  ;  and 
Franklin  himself  had  his  own  nephew,  Jonathan 
Williams,  employed  as  naval  agent,  which  gave  Lee 
a  magnificent  opportunity  to  charge  that  the  nephew 
was  in  league  with  the  uncle  and  with  Deane  to  steal 
the  public  money  and  share  with  them  the  proceeds 
of  the  sale  of  prizes. 

It  is  impossible  to  go  fully  into  all  these  details ; 
but  we  are  obliged  to  say,  in  order  to  make  the  sit 
uation  plain,  that  Deane,  being  taken  into  the  full 
confidence  of  Beaumarchais,  conducted  with  him  an 
immense  amount  of  business  through  the  firm  of 
Hortalez  &  Co.  On  several  occasions  Franklin  tes 
tified  in  the  warmest  manner  to  Deane's  efficiency 
and  usefulness,  and  this  testimony  is  the  stronger 
because  Franklin  was  never  taken  into  the  confidence 
of  Beaumarchais,  had  no  intercourse  with  him,  and 
might  be  supposed  to  be  piqued,  as  Lee  was,  by  this 
neglect.  But  the  greatest  secrecy  was  necessary, 
and  Deane  could  not  reveal  his  exact  relationship 
with  the  French  contractor  and  dramatist.  So  letter 

288 


EMBASSY   TO   FRANCE  AND   ITS   SCANDALS 

after  letter  was  received  by  Congress  from  Lee, 
describing  what  dreadful  fraud  and  corruption  the 
wicked  pair,  Deane  and  Beaumarchais,  were  guilty 
of  every  day.  Deane,  he  said,  was  making  a  fortune 
for  himself  by  his  relations  with  Beaumarchais,  and 
was  speculating  in  London.  Deane  also  urged  that 
Beaumarchais  should  be  paid  for  the  supplies,  which 
were  not,  he  said,  a  present  from  the  king,  and  this 
Lee,  of  course,  thought  was  another  evidence  of  his 
villany. 

Some  of  Lee's  accusations  are  on  their  face 
rather  far-fetched.  On  the  charge,  however,  that 
Deane  and  Franklin's  nephew,  Jonathan  Williams, 
were  speculating  on  their  own  account  in  the  sale 
of  prizes,  he  quotes  a  letter  from  Williams  to  Deane 
which  is  rather  strong  : 

"  I  have  been  on  board  the  prize  brig.  Mr.  Ross  tells  me  he  has 
written  to  you  on  the  subject  and  the  matter  rests  whether  according 
to  his  letter  you  will  undertake  or  not ;  if  we  take  her  on  private 
account  she  must  be  passed  but  13,000  livres." 

This,  it  must  be  confessed,  looked  very  sus 
picious,  for  Williams  was  in  charge  of  the  prizes, 
and  by  this  letter  he  seemed  prepared  to  act  as 
both  seller  and  purchaser  and  to  share  with  Deane. 

The  charge  that  Deane  had  assumed  to  himself  the 
whole  management  of  affairs  and  ignored  Lee  was 
undoubtedly  true,  and  no  one  has  ever  denied  it. 
Franklin  also  ignored  him,  for  he  was  an  unbear 
able  man  with  whom  no  one  could  live  at  peace. 

Lee  kept  on  with  his  accusations,  declaring  that 
Deane's  accounts  were  in  confusion.  A  packet  of 
19  289 


THE  TRUE  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

despatches  sent  to  Congress  was  found  on  its  arrival 
to  contain  nothing  but  blank  paper.  It  had  evi 
dently  been  opened  and  robbed.  Lee  promptly 
insinuated  that  Deane  must  have  been  the  thief, 
and  that  Franklin  probably  assisted. 

In  a  letter  to  Samuel  Adams,  Lee  said, — 

"  It  is  impossible  to  describe  to  you  to  what  a  degree  this  kind  of 
intrigue  has  disgraced,  confounded,  and  injured  our  affairs  here. 
The  observation  of  this  at  head-quarters  has  enjouraged  and  produced 
through  the  whole  a  spirit  of  neglect,  abuse,  plunder,  and  intrigue  in 
the  public  business  which  it  has  been  impossible  for  me  to  prevent  or 
correct." 

So  the  evidence,  or  rather  suspicions,  piled  up 
against  Deane,  and  he  was  ordered  home.  Sup 
posing  that  Congress  wanted  him  merely  for  infor 
mation  about  the  state  of  France,  he  returned  after 
the  treaty  of  alliance  was  signed,  coming  over,  as  he 
thought,  in  triumph  with  Admiral  D'Estaing  and  the 
fleet  that  was  to  assist  the  Americans. 

He  expected  to  be  welcomed  with  gratitude,  but 
Congress  would  not  notice  him ;  and  when  at  last 
he  was  allowed  to  tell  his  story,  the  members  of  that 
body  did  not  believe  a  word  of  it.  He  made  public 
statements  in  the  newspapers,  fought  Lee  with  paper 
and  ink,  and  the  curious  may  still  read  his  and  Lee's 
recriminations,  calling  one  another  traitors,  and  be 
come  more  confused  than  ever  over  the  controversy. 
His  arguments  only  served  to  injure  his  case.  He 
made  the  mistake  of  attacking  Lee  instead  of  merely 
defending  himself,  and  he  talked  so  openly  about 
our  affairs  in  France,  revealing,  among  other  things, 
the  dissensions  among  the  members  of  the  commis- 

290 


EMBASSY  TO   FRANCE  AND   ITS   SCANDALS 

sion,  that  he  was  generally  regarded  as  having 
injured  our  standing  among  the  governments  of 
Europe. 

He  struggled  with  Congress,  and  returned  to 
Paris  to  have  his  accounts  audited  ;  but  it  was  all 
useless  ;  he  was  ruined  ;  and,  in  despair  and  fury  at 
the  injustice  done  him,  he  went  over  to  the  British, 
like  Arnold,  and  died  in  poverty  and  obscurity. 

In  America  both  he  and  Beaumarchais  seem  to 
have  been  considered  rascals  until  far  into  the  next 
century,  when  the  publication  of  Beamarchais's  life 
and  the  discovery  of  some  papers  by  a  member  of  the 
Connecticut  Historical  Society  put  a  different  face 
upon  their  history.  Congress  voted  Deane's  heirs 
thirty-eight  thousand  dollars  as  a  recompense  for  the 
claims  which  the  Continental  Congress  had  refused 
to  pay  their  ancestor.  Indeed,  the  poverty  in  which 
Deane  died  was  not  consistent  with  Lee's  story  that 
he  had  been  making  millions  by  his  arrangement 
with  Beaumarchais.  Franklin  always  stood  by  him, 
and  publicly  declared  that  in  all  his  dealings  with 
him  he  had  never  had  any  occasion  to  suspect  that 
he  lacked  integrity. 

Lee  was  a  Virginian,  a  member  of  the  famous 
family  of  that  name,  and  a  younger  brother  of 
Richard  Hemy  Lee,  who  was  a  member  of  the 
Continental  Congress.  Though  born  in  Virginia, 
he  was  educated  in  England  at  Eton  and  also  at 
Edinburgh,  where  he  took  the  degree  of  doctor  of 
medicine.  The  easy-going  methods  by  which  Frank 
lin  and  Deane  handled  millions  of  dollars,  sold  hun 
dreds  of  prizes  brought  in  by  Paul  Jones  and  other 

291 


THE   TRUE  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

American  captains,  and  shipped  cargoes  of  arms, 
ammunition,  and  clothing  to  America  were  extremely 
shocking  to  him.  Or  perhaps  he  was  extremely 
shocked  because  he  was  not  allowed  a  hand  in  it. 
But  it  was  necessary  to  be  prompt  in  giving  assist 
ance  to  the  revolted  colonies,  and  Franklin  and 
Deane  pushed  the  business  along  as  best  they  could. 

If  Congress  had  made  a  less  stupid  arrangement 
the  embassy  might  have  been  organized  on  a  busi 
ness-like  system  in  which  everything  would  move 
by  distinct,  definite  orders,  everybody's  sphere  be 
defined,  with  a  regular  method  of  accounts  in  which 
every  item  should  have  its  voucher.  But,  as  Frank 
lin  himself  confessed,  he  never  could  learn  to  be 
orderly ;  and  now,  when  he  was  past  seventy,  infirm, 
often  laid  up  with  violent  attacks  of  the  gout,  with 
a  huge  literary  and  philosophic  reputation  to  sup 
port,  tormented  by  Lee  and  Izard,  the  whole  French 
nation  insane  with  admiration  for  him,  and  dining 
out  almost  every  day,  it  was  difficult  for  him  to  do 
otherwise  than  as  he  did. 

Although  the  others  had  equal  power  with  him, 
he  was  necessarily  the  head  of  the  embassy,  for  his 
reputation  was  so  great  in  France  that  everything 
gravitated  towards  him.  Most  people  scarcely  knew 
that  there  were  two  other  commissioners,  and  the 
little  they  knew  of  Lee  they  did  not  like.  Lee  was 
absent  part  of  the  time  on  journeys  to  Spain,  Berlin, 
and  Vienna,  and  as  Deane  had  started  the  business 
of  sending  supplies  before  either  Franklin  or  Lee 
arrived,  the  conduct  of  affairs  naturally  drifted  away 
from  Lee.  It  afforded  a  good  excuse  for  ignoring 

292 


EMBASSY   TO   FRANCE   AND   ITS   SCANDALS 

him.  He  was  insanely  suspicious,  and  charged  John 
Jay,  Reed,  Duane,  and  other  prominent  Americans 
with  treason,  apparently  without  the  slightest  foun 
dation. 

Finding  himself  ignored  and  in  an  awkward  and 
useless  position,  he  should  have  resigned,  giving  his 
reasons.  But  he  chose  to  stay  and  send  private 
letters  to  members  of  Congress  attacking  the  char 
acters  of  his  fellow-commissioners  and  intriguing  to 
have  himself  appointed  the  sole  envoy  to  France. 
Among  his  letters  are  to  be  found  three  on  this 
subject,  two  to  his  brother  in  Congress  and  one  to 
Samuel  Adams. 

' '  There  is  but  one  way  of  redressing  this  and  remedying  the  pub 
lic  evil ;  that  is  the  plan  I  before  sent  you  of  appointing  the  Dr. 
honoris  causa  to  Vienna,  Mr.  Deane  to  Holland,  Mr.  Jennings  to 
Madrid,  and  leaving  me  here."  (Life  of  Arthur  Lee,  vol.  ii.  p.  127.) 

His  attack  on  Franklin  and  his  nephew,  Jonathan 
Williams,  was  a  very  serious  one,  and  was  published 
in  a  phamphlet,  entitled  "  Observations  on  Certain 
Commercial  Transactions  in  France  Laid  Before 
Congress."  Williams  was  one  of  Franklin's  Boston 
nephews  who  turned  up  in  Paris  poor  and  with 
out  employment.  Franklin  was  always  taking  care 
of  his  relatives  with  government  positions,  and  he 
gave  this  one  the  position  of  naval  agent  at  Nantes. 
He  had  charge  of  the  purchase  of  supplies  for  Ameri 
can  men-of-war,  sold  the  prizes  that  were  brought  in, 
and  also  bought  and  shipped  arms  and  ammunition. 
It  was  a  large  business  involving  the  handling  of 
enormous  sums  of  money,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that 

293 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

there  were  opportunities  in  it  for  making  a  fortune. 
Under  the  modern  spoils  system  it  would  be  re 
garded  as  a  precious  plum  which  a  political  party 
would  be  justified  in  making  almost  any  sacrifices  to 
secure. 

Franklin  and  Deane  seem  to  have  let  Williams 
manage  this  department  pretty  much  as  he  pleased, 
and,  as  has  been  already  shown,  Lee  had  some 
ground  for  suspecting  that  Deane  was  privately  in 
terested  with  Williams  in  the  sale  of  prizes.  Wil 
liams  certainly  expended  large  sums  on  Deane's 
orders  alone,  and  he  was  continually  calling  for 
more  money  from  the  commissioners'  bankers. 
Lee  demanded  that  there  should  be  no  more  orders 
signed  by  Deane  alone,  and  that  Williams  should 
send  in  his  accounts ;  and,  notwithstanding  Lee's 
naturally  captious  and  suspicious  disposition,  he  was 
perfectly  right  in  this. 

Deane  and  Williams  kept  demanding  more  money, 
and  Lee  asked  Franklin  to  stop  it,  which  he  not  only 
refused  to  do,  but  wrote  a  letter  to  his  nephew  justi 
fying  him  in  everything : 

"  PASSY,  Dec.  22,  1777. 
"DEAR  NEPHEW: 

"  I  received  yours  of  the  i6th  and  am  concerned  as  well  as  you 
at  the  difference  between  Messrs.  Deane  and  Lee,  but  cannot  help 
it.  You  need,  however,  be  under  no  concern  as  to  your  orders 
being  only  from  Mr.  Deane.  As  you  have  always  acted  uprightly 
and  ably  for  the  public  service,  you  would  be  justified  if  you  had  no 
orders  at  all.  But  as  he  generally  consulted  with  me  and  had  my 
approbation  in  the  orders  he  gave,  and  I  know  they  were  for  the 
best  and  aimed  at  the  public  good,  I  hereby  certify  you  that  I  ap 
prove  and  join  in  those  you  received  from  him  and  desire  you  to 
proceed  in  the  execution  of  the  same." 

294 


EMBASSY   TO   FRANCE  AND   ITS   SCANDALS 

Williams  at  last  sent  in  his  accounts,  and  Lee 
went  over  them,  marking  some  items  "  manifestly 
unjust,"  others  "plainly  exorbitant,"  and  others 
"  altogether  unsatisfactory  for  want  of  names,  dates, 
or  receipts."  He  refused  to  approve  the  accounts, 
sent  them  to  Congress,  and  asked  Williams  to  pro 
duce  his  vouchers.  The  vouchers,  Lee  tells  us, 
were  never  produced.  He  asked  for  them  again 
and  again,  but  there  was  always  some  excuse,  and 
he  charges  that  Williams  had  in  his  possession  a 
hundred  thousand  livres  more  than  was  accounted 
for.  Finally,  John  Adams,  who  had  come  out  to 
supersede  Deane,  joined  with  Franklin  in  giving 
Williams  an  order  on  the  bankers  for  the  balance 
claimed  by  him  ;  but  the  order  expressly  stated  that 
it  was  not  to  be  understood  as  an  approval  of  his 
accounts,  for  which  he  must  be  responsible  to  Con 
gress.  Franklin  appointed  certain  persons  to  audit 
the  accounts,  but  at  a  time,  Lee  says,  when  they 
were  on  the  point  of  sailing  for  America,  and  there 
fore  could  not  act.  Adams  seems  to  have  been 
convinced  that  Williams  was  not  all  that  could  be 
desired,  and  he  and  Franklin  soon  dismissed  him  from 
his  office,  again  reminding  him  that  this  was  not  to 
be  considered  as  an  approval  of  his  accounts. 

Lee's  charge  against  Franklin  was  that  he  had 
connived  at  the  acts  of  his  nephew  and  done  every 
thing  possible  to  shield  him  and  enable  him  to  get 
possession  of  the  balance  of  money  he  claimed. 
Readers  must  draw  their  own  conclusions,  for  the 
matter  was  never  officially  investigated.  It  would 
have  been  unwise  for  Congress  to  inaugurate  a  pub- 

295 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

lie  scandal  at  a  time  when  the  country  was  struggling 
for  existence,  needed  all  the  moral  and  financial 
support  it  could  obtain  from  Europe,  and  as  yet  saw 
no  end  to  the  Revolution. 

One  more  point  must  be  noticed.  Lee  com 
mented  with  much  sarcasm  on  the  sudden  prosperity 
of  Jonathan  Williams.  He  had  been  clerk  to  a  sugar- 
baker  in  England,  and  was  supposed  to  be  without 
means  ;  but  as  naval  agent  he  soon  began  to  call 
himself  a  merchant,  and  when  waiting  on  the  com 
missioners  charged  five  Louis  d'ors  a  day  for  the  loss 
of  his  time.  Lee,  according  to  some  of  his  letters, 
had  been  trying  for  some  time  to  have  a  certain 
John  Lloyd,  of  South  Carolina,  appointed  in  the 
place  of  Williams  ;  and  I  shall  quote  part  of  one  of 
these  letters,  which  shows  why  Lee  wanted  Wil 
liams' s  place  for  one  of  his  friends. 

' '  My  brother  and  myself  have  conceived  that  as  the  public  allow 
ance  to  the  commercial  agent  is  very  liberal  and  the  situation  neces 
sarily  must  recommend  considerable  business,  the  person  appointed 
might  with  the  most  fair  and  conscientious  discharge  of  his  duty  to 
the  public  make  his  own  fortune."  (Life  of  Arthur  Lee,  vol.  ii.  p. 
144.) 

He  did  not  succeed  in  having  Lloyd  appointed, 
but  he  and  his  brother  William  secured  the  posi 
tion  for  a  friend  of  theirs  called  Schweighauser,  on 
the  dismissal  of  Williams,  and  this  Schweighauser 
appointed  a  nephew  of  the  Lees  as  one  of  his 
assistants. 

It  should  be  said  that  although  Lee  and  Izard 
were  constantly  hinting  at  evil  practices  by  Frank 
lin,  and  sometimes  directly  stigmatized  him  as  the 

296 


EMBASSY   TO   FRANCE  AND   ITS   SCANDALS 

"  father  of  corruption"  and  deeply  involved  in  the 
most  disreputable  schemes,  they  never  produced  any 
proof  that  he  had  enriched  himself  or  was  directly 
engaged  in  anything  discreditable.  There  seems  to 
be  no  doubt  that  certain  people  were  making  money 
under  cover  of  the  loose  way  in  which  affairs  were 
managed.  Franklin  must  have  known  of  this,  as 
well  as  Adams  and  the  other  commissioners,  but 
neither  he  nor  they  were  enriched  by  it  Lee's 
pamphlet  goes  no  farther  than  to  say  that  Franklin 
had  shielded  his  nephew.  John  Adams,  it  may  be 
observed,  assisted  in  this  shielding,  if  it  can  with 
justice  be  so  called,  for  he  signed  with  Franklin  the 
order  allowing  the  money  to  be  paid  to  Williams 
on  condition  that  it  should  not  be  considered  an  ap 
proval  of  his  accounts.  Adams  afterwards  described 
very  concisely  the  situation,  and  how  he,  with  the 
others,  was  compelled  to  connive  at  peculations 
under  the  absurd  system. 

'*  I  knew  it  to  be  impossible  to  give  any  kind  of  satisfaction  to  our 
constituents,  that  is  to  Congress,  or  their  constituents,  while  we 
consented  or  connived  at  such  irregular  transactions,  such  arbitrary 
proceedings,  and  such  contemptible  peculations  as  had  been  prac 
tised  in  Mr.  Deane's  time,  not  only  while  he  was  in  France,  alone, 
without  any  public  character,  but  even  while  he  was  associated  with 
Dr.  Franklin  and  Mr.  Arthur  Lee  in  a  real  commission  ;  and  which 
were  continued  in  some  degree  while  I  was  combined  in  the  com 
mission  with  Franklin  and  Lee,  in  spite  of  all  the  opposition  and 
remonstrance  that  Lee  and  I  could  make."  (Adams's  Works,  vol. 
i.  p.  657.) 

Franklin  said  and  wrote  very  little  on  the  subject. 
He  sent  no  letters  to  members  of  Congress  under 
mining  the  characters  of  his  fellow-commissioners ; 

297 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

the  few  statements  that  he  made  were  exceedingly 
mild  and  temperate,  and  were  usually  to  the  effect 
that  there  were  differences  and  disputes  which  he 
regretted.  He  usually  invited  his  fellow-commis 
sioners  to  dine  with  him  every  Sunday,  and  on  these 
occasions  they  appeared  very  friendly,  though  at 
heart  cherishing  vindictive  feelings  towards  one 
another. 

In  truth,  Lee  and  Izard  wrote  so  much  and  so 
violently  that  they  dug  the  graves  of  their  own  rep 
utations.  It  was  Dr.  Johnson  who  said  that  no  man 
was  ever  written  down  except  by  himself,  and  Frank 
lin  once  shrewdly  remarked,  "  spots  of  dirt  thrown 
upon  my  character  I  suffered  while  fresh  to  remain  ; 
I  did  not  choose  to  spread  by  endeavoring  to  remove 
them,  but  relied  on  the  vulgar  adage  that  they  would 
all  rub  off  when  they  were  dry. " 

General  public  opinion  was  then  and  has  remained 
in  favor  of  Franklin,  and  the  prominent  men  of 
France  were,  without  exception,  on  his  side.  They 
all  in  the  end  detested  Lee,  whose  conduct  showed 
a  vindictive  disposition,  and  who  evidently  had  pur 
poses  of  his  own  to  serve.  One  of  his  pet  suspicions 
was  that  Paul  Jones  was  a  rascal  in  league  with  the 
other  rascal,  Franklin,  and  he  protests  in  a  letter  to 
a  member  of  Congress  against  Jones  being  "kept 
upon  a  cruising  job  of  Chaumont  and  Dr.  Frank 
lin."  Jones,  he  predicted,  would  not  return  from 
this  cruise,  but  would  go  over  to  the  enemy. 

Franklin's  service  in  France  may  be  divided  into 
four  periods.  First,  from  his  arrival  in  December, 
1776,  until  February,  1778,  during  which  two  years 

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EMBASSY  TO   FRANCE   AND   ITS   SCANDALS 

he  and  Deane  conducted  the  business  as  best  they 
could  and  quarrelled  with  Lee  and  Izard.  Second, 
the  year  from  February,  1778,  until  February,  1779, 
during  which  John  Adams  was  in  Paris  in  the  place 
of  Silas  Deane.  Third,  some  of  the  remaining 
months  of  1779,  during  which,  although  Franklin 
was  sole  plenipotentiary  to  France,  Lee,  Izard,  and 
others  still  retained  their  appointments  to  other 
countries,  and  remained  in  Paris,  continuing  the 
quarrels  more  viciously  than  ever.  They  were  re 
called  towards  the  close  of  1779,  and  from  that  time 
dates  the  fourth  period,  during  which  Franklin  en 
joyed  the  sole  control,  unassailed  by  the  swarm  of 
hornets  which  had  made  his  life  a  burden. 

I  have  already  described  most  of  the  first  period 
as  briefly  as  possible  ;  its  full  treatment  would  re 
quire  a  volume.  All  that  remains  is  to  describe  the 
act  with  which  it  closed, — the  signing  of  the  treaty 
of  alliance.  This  treaty,  which  secured  the  success 
of  our  Revolution  by  giving  us  the  assistance  of  a 
French  army  and  fleet,  was  the  result  of  unforeseen 
events,  and  was  not  obtained  by  the  labors  of  Frank 
lin  or  those  of  any  of  the  commissioners. 

France  had  been  anxious  to  ally  herself  with  us 
during  the  first  two  years  of  the  Revolution,  but 
dared  not,  because  there  was  apparently  no  prospect 
that  we  would  be  successful.  In  fact,  all  the  indica 
tions  pointed  to  failure.  Washington  was  every 
where  defeated  ;  had  been  driven  from  New  York, 
k>st  the  battle  of  the  Brandywine,  lost  Philadelphia, 
and  then  the  news  arrived  in  Europe  that  Burgoyne 
was  moving  from  Canada  down  the  Hudson,  and 

299 


THE   TRUE  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

would  be  joined  by  Howe  from  New  York.  This 
would  cut  the  colonies  in  half;  separate  New  Eng 
land,  the  home  of  the  Revolution,  from  the  Middle  and 
Southern  Colonies  and  result  in  our  total  subjugation. 

The  situation  of  the  commissioners  in  Paris  was 
dismal  enough  at  this  time.  They  had  been  success 
ful  at  first,  with  the  aid  of  Beaumarchais ;  but  now 
Beaumarchais  was  in  despair  at  the  ingratitude  of 
Congress  and  its  failure  to  pay  him  ;  no  more  prizes 
were  coming  in,  for  the  British  fleets  had  combined 
against  the  American  war  vessels  and  driven  them 
from  the  ocean  ;  the  commissioners  had  spent  all 
their  money,  and  Franklin  proposed  that  they 
should  sell  what  clothing  and  arms  they  had  been 
unable  to  ship  and  pay  their  debts  as  far  as  possible 
with  the  proceeds.  At  any  moment  they  might 
hear  that  they  had  neither  country  nor  flag,  that  the 
Revolution  had  collapsed,  and  that  they  must  spend 
the  rest  of  their  lives  in  France  as  pensioners  on  the 
royal  bounty,  daring  to  go  neither  to  America  nor 
to  England,  where  they  would  be  hung  as  ring 
leaders  of  the  rebels. 

In  their  dire  extremity  they  forgot  their  animosi 
ties,  and  one  is  reminded  of  those  pictures  of  the 
most  irreconcilable  wild  animals — foxes  and  hares,  or 
wolves  and  wild-cats — seeking  refuge  together  from 
a  flood  on  a  floating  log.  In  public  they  kept  a 
bold  front,  in  spite  of  the  sneers  of  the  English  resi 
dents  in  Paris  and  the  shrugging  shoulders  of  the 
Frenchmen. 

"Well,  doctor,"  said  an  Englishman  to  Franklin, 
"Howe  has  taken  Philadelphia." 

300 


EMBASSY   TO   FRANCE   AND   ITS   SCANDALS 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  sir ;  Philadelphia  has  taken 
Howe." 

But  in  his  heart  Franklin  was  bowed  down  with 
anxiety  and  apprehension.  We  all  know  what  hap 
pened.  Burgoyne  and  Howe  failed  to  connect,  and 
Burgoyne  surrendered  his  army  to  the  American 
general,  Gates.  That  was  the  turning-point  of  the 
Revolution,  and  there  was  now  no  doubt  in  France 
of  the  final  issue.  A  young  man,  Jonathan  Austin, 
of  Massachusetts,  was  sent  on  a  swift  ship  to  carry 
the  news  to  Paris.  The  day  his  carriage  rolled  into 
the  court-yard  of  Chaumont's  house  at  Passy,  Frank 
lin,  Deane,  both  the  Lees,  Izard,  Beaumarchais, — in 
fact,  all  the  snarling  and  quarrelling  agents, — were 
there,  debating,  no  doubt,  where  they  would  drag 
out  the  remains  of  their  miserable  lives. 

They  all  rushed  out  to  see  Austin,  and  Franklin 
addressed  to  him  one  sad  question  which  they  all 
wanted  answered,  whether  Philadelphia  really  was 
taken. 

"Yes,  sir,"  said  Austin. 

The  old  philosopher  clasped  his  hands  and  was 
stumbling  back  into  the  house. 

"  But,  sir,  I  have  greater  news  than  that.  General 
Burgoyne  and  his  whole  army  are  prisoners  of  war." 

Beaumarchais  drove  his  carriage  back  to  Paris  so 
fast  that  it  was  overturned  and  his  arm  dislocated. 
Austin  relates  that  for  a  long  time  afterwards  Frank 
lin  would  often  sit  musing  and  dreaming  and  then 
break  out,  "  Oh,  Mr.  Austin,  you  brought  us  glorious 
news." 

Austin  had  arrived  on  December  3,  1777.  On  the 
301 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

6th  of  the  same  month  the  French  government  re 
quested  the  commissioners  to  renew  their  proposals 
for  an  alliance.  Eleven  days  after  that  they  were 
told  that  the  treaty  would  be  made,  and  within  two 
months, — namely,  on  February  6,  1778, — after  full 
discussion  of  all  the  details,  it  was  signed.  This  was 
certainly  very  prompt  action  on  the  part  of  France 
and  shows  her  eagerness. 

On  the  day  that  he  signed  the  treaty,  Franklin,  it 
is  said,  wore  the  same  suit  of  Manchester  velvet  in 
which  he  had  been  dressed  when  Wedderburn  made 
his  attack  upon  him  before  the  Privy  Council  in  Lon 
don,  and  after  the  signing  it  was  never  worn  again. 
When  asked  if  there  had  not  been  some  special 
meaning  attached  to  the  wearing  of  these  clothes  at 
the  signing,  he  would  make  no  other  reply  than  a 
smile.  It  was  really  beautiful  philosophic  ven 
geance,  and  adds  point  to  Walpole's  epigram  on 
the  scene  before  the  Council : 

"Sarcastic  Sawney,  swol'n  with  spite  and  prate, 
On  silent  Franklin  poured  his  venal  hate. 
The  calm  philosopher,  without  reply, 
Withdrew,  and  gave  his  country  liberty." 

There  was  much  discussion  among  the  three 
envoys  over  the  terms  of  the  treaty,  and  their  love 
for  one  another  was  not  increased.  The  principal 
part  of  Izard's  bitterness  against  Franklin  is  sup 
posed  to  have  begun  at  this  time.  Lee  made  a 
point  on  the  question  of  molasses.  In  the  first 
draft  of  the  treaty  it  was  agreed  that  France  should 
never  lay  an  export  duty  on  any  molasses  taken 

302 


EMBASSY   TO   FRANCE   AND   ITS   SCANDALS 

from  her  West  India  islands  by  Americans.  Ver- 
gennes  objected  that  this  was  not  fair,  as  the  Amer 
icans  bound  themselves  to  no  equivalent  restriction 
on  their  own  exports.  Franklin  suggested  a  clause 
that,  in  consideration  of  France  agreeing  to  lay  no 
export  duty  on  molasses,  the  United  States  should 
agree  to  lay  no  export  duty  on  any  article  taken  by 
Frenchmen  from  America,  and  this  was  accepted 
by  Vergennes. 

Lee,  however,  objected  that  we  were  binding  our 
selves  on  every  article  of  export,  while  France  bound 
herself  on  only  one.  In  this  he  was  entirely  right, 
and  it  was  not  an  officious  interference,  as  Franklin's 
biographers  have  maintained.  He  pressed  his  point 
so  hard  that  it  was  finally  agreed  with  the  French 
government  that  Congress  might  accept  or  reject 
the  whole  arrangement  on  this  question,  if  it  saw  fit 
Congress  supported  Lee  and  rejected  it. 

The  signing  of  the  treaty  of  course  rendered 
Beaumarchais's  secret  work  through  Hortalez  &  Co. 
of  less  importance.  France  was  now  the  open  ally 
of  the  United  States  ;  the  French  government  need 
no  longer  smuggle  arms  and  clothing  into  America, 
but  was  preparing  to  send  a  fleet  and  an  army  to 
assist  the  insurgents,  as  they  were  still  called  in  Paris. 
All  this  rendered  the  labors  of  the  embassy  lighter 
and  less  complicated. 

In  April,  1778,  a  few  months  after  the  signing  of 
the  treaty,  John  Adams,  after  a  most  dangerous  and 
adventurous  voyage  across  the  Atlantic,  arrived  to 
take  the  place  of  Silas  Deane.  He  has  left  us  a 
very  full  account  of  the  condition  of  affairs  and  his 

303 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

efforts  at  reform.  Franklin's  biographers  have  been 
sorely  puzzled  to  know  what  to  do  with  these  criti 
cisms  ;  but  any  one  who  will  take  the  trouble  to 
read  impartially  all  that  Adams  has  said,  and  not 
merely  extracts  from  it,  will  easily  be  convinced  of 
his  fairness.  He  makes  no  mistake  about  Lee  ; 
speaks  of  him  as  a  man  very  difficult  to  get  on  with, 
and  describes  Izard  in  the  same  way.  There  is  not 
the  slightest  evidence  that  these  two  men  poisoned 
his  mind  against  Franklin.  He  does  not  side  with 
them  entirely ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  in  the  changes 
he  undertook  to  make  was  sometimes  on  their  side 
and  sometimes  against  them.  He  held  the  scales 
very  evenly. 

Lee  wanted  all  the  papers  of  the  embassy  brought 
to  his  own  house,  and  Adams  wrote  him  a  letter 
which  certainly  shows  that  Adams  had  not  gone  over 
to  the  Lee  party,  and  is  also  an  example  of  the  efforts 
he  was  making  to  improve  the  situation. 

"  I  have  not  asked  Dr.  Franklin's  opinion  concerning  your  pro 
posal  of  a  room  in  your  house  for  the  papers,  and  an  hour  to  meet 
there,  because  I  know  it  would  be  in  vain  ;  for  I  think  it  must 
appear  to  him  more  unequal  still.  It  cannot  be  expected,  that  two 
should  go  to  one,  when  it  is  as  easy  again  for  one  to  go  to  two ;  not 
to  mention  Dr.  Franklin's  age,  his  rank  in  the  country,  or  his  char 
acter  in  the  world  ;  nor  that  nine-tenths  of  the  public  letters  are 
constantly  brought  to  this  house,  and  will  ever  be  carried  where  Dr. 
Franklin  is.  I  will  venture  to  make  a  proposition  in  my  turn,  in 
which  I  am  very  sincere  ;  it  is  that  you  would  join  families  with  us. 
There  is  room  enough  in  this  house  to  accommodate  us  all.  You 
shall  take  the  apartments  which  belong  to  me  at  present,  and  I  will 
content  myself  with  the  library  room  and  the  next  to  it.  Appoint  a 
room  for  business,  any  that  you  please,  mine  or  another,  a  person  to 
keep  the  papers,  and  certain  hours  to  do  business.  This  arrange 
ment  will  save  a  large  sum  of  money  to  the  public,  and,  as  it  would 

3°4 


EMBASSY   TO   FRANCE  AND   ITS  SCANDALS 

give  us  a  thousand  opportunities  of  conversing  together,  which  now 
we  have  not,  and,  by  having  but  one  place  for  our  countrymen  and 
others  to  go  to,  who  have  occasion  to  visit  us,  would  greatly  facilitate 
the  public  business.  It  would  remove  the  reproach  we  lie  under, 
of  which  I  confess  myself  very  much  ashamed,  of  not  being  able  to 
agree  together,  and  would  make  the  commission  more  respectable, 
if  not  in  itself,  yet  in  the  estimation  of  the  English,  the  French,  and 
the  American  nations  ;  and,  I  am  sure,  if  we  judge  by  the  letters  we 
receive,  it  wants  to  be  made  more  respectable,  at  least  in  the  eyes 
of  many  persons  of  this  country."  (Bigelow's  Franklin  from  His 
Own  Writings,  vol.  ii.  p.  424.) 

Adams  had  none  of  the  rancor  of  Lee  and  Izard, 
but  he  tells  us  candidly  that  he  found  the  public 
business  in  great  confusion.  It  had  never  been 
methodically  conducted.  "  There  never  was  before 
I  came  a  minute  book,  a  letter  book,  or  an  ac 
count  book  ;  and  it  is  not  possible  to  obtain  a 
clear  idea  of  our  affairs."  Of  Deane  he  says  that 
he  "  lived  expensively,  and  seems  not  to  have  had 
much  order  in  his  business,  public  or  private  ;  but 
he  was  active,  diligent,  subtle,  and  successful,  having 
accomplished  the  great  purpose  of  his  mission  to 
advantage." 

Adams  procured  blank  books  and  devoted  him 
self  to  assorting  the  papers  of  the  office  at  Passy, 
where  Franklin  had  allowed  everything  to  lie  about 
in  the  greatest  confusion.  He  found  that  too  many 
people  had  been  making  money  out  of  the  em 
bassy,  and  of  these  Jonathan  Williams  appears  to 
have  been  one.  He  united  with  Lee  in  demanding 
Williams's  accounts,  and  compelled  Franklin  to  join 
in  dismissing  him.  A  man  named  Ross  was  another 
delinquent  who  was  preying  on  the  embassy,  and 
the  arrangement  by  which  he  was  allowed  to  do  it  is 

«o  305 


THE   TRUE  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

described  by  Adams  as  "more  irregular,  more  in 
consistent  with  the  arrangement  of  Congress  and 
every  way  more  unjustifiable  than  even  the  case  of 
Mr.  Williams." 

He  gives  us  many  glimpses  of  Franklin's  life, — his 
gayety,  the  bright  stories  he  told,  and  his  wonderful 
reputation  among  the  French.  An  interesting  young 
lady,  Mademoiselle  de  Passy,  was  a  great  favorite 
with  Franklin,  who  used  to  call  her  his  flame  and 
his  love.  She  married  a  man  whose  name  trans 
lated  into  English  would  be  "  Marquis  of  Thunder." 
The  next  time  Madame  de  Chaumont  met  Franklin, 
she  cried  out,  "Alas  !  all  the  conductors  of  Mr. 
Franklin  could  not  prevent  the  thunder  from  falling 
on  Mademoiselle  de  Passy." 

Adams  was  at  the  Academy  of  Sciences  when 
Franklin  and  Voltaire  were  present,  and  a  general 
cry  arose  among  the  sensation-loving  people  that 
these  two  wonderful  men  should  be  introduced  to 
each  other.  They  accordingly  bowed  and  spoke. 
But  this  was  not  enough,  and  the  two  philosophers 
could  not  understand  what  more  was  wanted.  They 
took  each  other  by  the  hand  ;  but  still  the  clamor 
continued.  Finally  it  was  explained  to  them  that 
"  they  must  embrace  in  French  fashion."  The  two 
old  men  immediately  began  hugging  and  kissing 
each  other,  which  satisfied  the  company,  and  the 
cry  spread  through  the  whole  country,  "  How  beau 
tiful  it  was  to  see  Solon  and  Sophocles  embrace  !" 

Some  of  Adams's  criticisms  and  estimates  of 
Franklin,  though  not  satisfactory  to  his  eulogists, 
are,  on  the  whole,  exceedingly  just. 

306 


EMBASSY   TO   FRANCE   AND   ITS   SCANDALS 

"That  he  was  a  great  genius,  a  great  wit,  a  great  humorist,  a 
great  satirist,  and  a  great  politician  is  certain.  That  he  was  a  great 
philosopher,  a  great  moralist,  and  a  great  statesman  is  more  ques 
tionable."  (Adams's  Works,  vol.  in.  p.  139.) 

This  brief  statement  will  bear  the  test  of  very 
close  investigation.  Full  credit,  it  will  be  observed, 
is  given  to  his  qualities  as  a  humorous  and  satirical 
writer,  and  even  as  a  politician.  The  word  politician 
is  used  very  advisedly,  for  up  to  that  time  Franklin 
had  done  nothing  that  would  raise  him  beyond  that 
class  into  statesmanship. 

He  had  had  a  long  career  in  Pennsylvania  poli 
tics,  where  his  abilities  were  confined  to  one  prov 
ince,  and  in  the  attempt  to  change  the  colony  into 
a  royal  government  he  had  been  decidedly  in  the 
wrong.  While  representing  Pennsylvania,  Massa 
chusetts,  and  Georgia  in  England  from  the  time  of 
the  Stamp  Act  until  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution, 
he  had  accomplished  nothing,  except  that  his  exam 
ination  before  Parliament  had  encouraged  the  col 
onists  to  persist  in  their  opposition  ;  he  had  got 
himself  into  a  very  bad  scrape  about  the  Hutchin- 
son  letters  ;  and  his  plan  of  reconciliation  with  the 
mother  country  had  broken  down.  In  France,  the 
government  being  already  very  favorable  to  the 
colonies,  there  was  but  little  for  the  embassy  to  do 
except  to  conduct  the  business  of  sending  supplies 
and  selling  prizes,  and  in  this  Deane  and  Beaumar- 
chais  did  most  of  the  work,  while  Franklin  had 
kept  no  accounts,  had  allowed  his  papers  to  get 
into  confusion,  was  utterly  unable  to  keep  the 
envoys  in  harmony,  and  had  not  made  any  effective 

307 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

appeal  to  Congress  to  change  the  absurd  system 
which  permitted  the  sending  to  a  foreign  country 
of  three  commissioners  with  equal  powers.  In  the 
last  years  of  his  mission  in  France  he  did  work 
which  was  more  valuable  ;  but  it  was  not  until  some 
years  afterwards,  when  he  was  past  eighty  and  on  the 
verge  of  the  grave,  that  he  accomplished  in  the 
Constitutional  Convention  of  1787  the  one  act  of 
his  life  which  may  be  called  a  brilliant  stroke  of 
statesmanship. 

His  qualities  as  a  moralist  have  been  discussed  in 
a  previous  chapter  which  fully  justifies  Adams's  as 
sertion.  As  a  philosopher,  by  which  Adams  meant 
what  we  now  call  a  man  of  science,  Franklin  was 
distinguished,  but  not  great.  It  could  not  be  said 
that  he  deserved  to  be  ranked  with  Kepler  or  New 
ton.  His  discovery  of  the  nature  of  lightning  was 
picturesque  and  striking,  and  had  given  him  popular 
renown,  but  it  could  not  put  him  in  the  front  rank 
of  discoverers. 

In  a  later  passage  in  his  Diary  Adams  attempts 
to  combat  the  French  idea  that  Franklin  was  the 
American  legislator. 

"  'Yes,'  said  M.  Marbois,  'he  is  celebrated  as  the  great  philos 
opher  and  the  great  .legislator  of  America.'  'He  is,'  said  I,  'a 
great  philosopher,  but  as  a  legislator  of  America  he  has  done  very 
little.  It  is  universally  believed  in  France,  England,  and  all 
Europe,  that  his  electric  wand  has  accomplished  all  this  revolution. 
But  nothing  is  more  groundless.  He  has  done  very  little.  It  is 
believed  that  he  made  all  the  American  constitutions  and  their  con 
federation  ;  but  he  made  neither.  He  did  not  even  make  the  con 
stitution  of  Pennsylvania,  bad  as  it  is.'  .  .  . 

"I  said  that  Mr.  Franklin  had  great  merit  as  a  philosopher.  His 
discoveries  in  electricity  were  very  grand,  and  he  certainly  was  a 

308 


AMERICA    SET    FREE    BY    FRANKLIN 
(From  a  French  engraving) 


EMBASSY   TO   FRANCE  AND   ITS   SCANDALS 

great  genius,  and  had  great  merit  in  our  American  affairs.  But  he 
had  no  title  to  the  '  legislator  of  America.'  M.  Marbois  said  he  had 
wit  and  irony ;  but  these  were  not  the  faculties  of  statesmen.  His 
Essay  upon  the  true  means  of  bringing  a  great  Empire  to  be  a  small 
one  was  very  pretty.  I  said  he  had  wrote  many  things  which  had 
great  merit,  and  infinite  wit  and  ingenuity.  His  Bonhomme  Richard 
was  a  very  ingenious  thing,  which  had  been  so  much  celebrated  in 
France,  gone  through  so  many  editions,  and  been  recommended  by 
curates  and  bishops  to  so  many  parishes  and  dioceses. 

"  M.  Marbois  asked,  '  Are  natural  children  admitted  in  America 
to  all  privileges  like  children  born  in  wedlock  ?'  .  .  .  M.  Marbois 
said  this,  no  doubt,  in  allusion  to  Mr.  F.'s  natural  son,  and  natural 
son  of  a  natural  son.  I  let  myself  thus  freely  into  this  conversation, 
being  led  on  naturally  by  the  Chevalier  and  M.  Marbois  on  purpose, 
because  I  am  sure  it  cannot  be  my  duty,  nor  the  interest  of  my 
country,  that  I  should  conceal  any  of  my  sentiments  of  this  man,  at 
the  same  time  that  I  do  justice  to  his  merits.  It  would  be  worse 
than  folly  to  conceal  my  opinion  of  his  great  faults."  (Adams's 
Works,  vol.  iii.  p.  220.) 

The  French  always  believed  that  Franklin  was 
the  originator  of  the  Revolution,  and  that  he  was  a 
sort  of  Solon  who  had  prepared  laws  for  all  the 
revolted  colonies,  directed  their  movements,  and 
revised  all  their  state  papers  and  public  documents. 
It  was  under  the  influence  of  this  notion  that  they 
worshipped  him  as  the  personification  of  liberty.  It 
must  have  been  extremely  irritating  to  Adams  and 
others  to  find  the  French  people  assuming  that  the 
old  patriarch  in  his  fur  cap  had  emancipated  in  the 
American  woods  a  rude  and  strange  people  who 
without  him  could  not  have  taken  care  of  them 
selves.  But,  protest  as  they  might,  they  never  could 
persuade  the  French  to  give  up  their  ideal,  and  this 
was  undoubtedly  the  foundation  of  a  great  deal  of 
the  hostility  to  Franklin  which  showed  itself  in  Con 
gress. 

309 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

In  1811,  long  after  Franklin's  death,  Adams  wrote 
a  newspaper  article  defending  himself  against  some 
complaints  that  Franklin  had  made,  of  which  I  shall 
have  more  to  say  hereafter.  It  is  a  most  vigorous 
piece  of  writing,  and,  in  spite  of  some  unfounded 
suspicions  which  it  contains  and  the  bluster  and 
egotism  so  characteristic  of  its  author,  is  by  far  the 
most  searching  and  fairest  criticism  of  Franklin  that 
was  ever  written  : 

"  His  reputation  was  more  universal  than  that  of  Leibnitz  or 
Newton,  Frederick  or  Voltaire,  and  his  character  more  beloved  and 
esteemed  than  any  or  all  of  them.  .  .  .  His  name  was  familiar  to 
government  and  people,  to  kings  and  courtiers,  nobility,  clergy  and 
philosophers,  as  well  as  plebeians,  to  such  a  degree  that  there  was 
scarcely  a  peasant  or  a  citizen,  a  valet  de  chambrey  coachman  or 
footman,  a  lady's  chambermaid  or  a  scullion  in  a  kitchen  who  was 
not  familiar  with  it,  and  who  did  not  consider  him  as  a  friend  to 
human  kind."  (Adams's  Works,  vol.  i.  p.  660.) 

A  large  part  of  this  reputation  rested,  Adams 
thought,  on  great  talents  and  qualities,  but  the  rest 
was  artificial,  the  result  of  peculiar  circumstances 
which  had  exaggerated  the  importance  of  Franklin's 
opinions  and  actions.  The  whole  tribe  of  printers 
and  newspaper  editors  in  Europe  and  America  had 
become  enamoured  and  proud  of  him  as  a  member 
of  their  body.  Every  day  in  the  year  they  filled 
the  magazines,  journals,  pamphlets,  and  all  the  ga 
zettes  of  Europe  "with  incessant  praise  of  Monsieur 
Franklin."  From  these  gazettes  could  be  collected 
"  a  greater  number  of  panegyrical  paragraphs  upon 
'  le  grand  Franklin'  than  upon  any  other  man  that 
ever  lived."  He  had  become  a  member  of  two  of 
the  most  powerful  democratic  and  liberal  bodies  in 

310 


EMBASSY  TO   FRANCE  AND   ITS   SCANDALS 

Europe,  the  Encyclopedists  and  the  Society  of 
Economists,  and  thus  effectually  secured  their  devo 
tion  and  praise.  All  the  people  of  that  time  who 
were  rousing  discontent  in  Europe  and  preparing  the 
way  for  the  French  Revolution  counted  Franklin  as 
one  of  themselves.  When  he  took  part  in  the  Amer 
ican  Revolution  their  admiration  knew  no  bounds. 
He  was  "  the  magician  who  had  excited  the  ignorant 
Americans  to  resistance,"  and  he  would  soon  "abol 
ish  monarchy,  aristocracy,  and  hierarchy  throughout 
the  world."  But  most  important  of  all  in  building 
up  his  reputation  was  the  lightning-rod. 

"  Nothing,"  says  Adams,  "  perhaps,  that  ever  occurred  upon  the 
earth  was  so  well  calculated  to  give  any  man  an  extensive  and  uni 
versal  a  celebrity  as  the  discovery  of  the  efficacy  of  iron  points  and 
the  invention  of  lightning-rods.  The  idea  was  one  of  the  most  sub 
lime  that  ever  entered  a  human  imagination,  that  a  mortal  should  dis 
arm  the  clouds  of  heaven,  and  almost  '  snatch  from  his  hand  the 
sceptre  and  the  rod.'  The  ancients  would  have  enrolled  him  with 
Bacchus  and  Ceres,  Hercules  and  Minerva.  His  paratonnerres 
erected  their  heads  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  on  temples  and  palaces 
no  less  than  on  cottages  of  peasants  and  the  habitations  of  ordinary 
citizens.  These  visible  objects  reminded  all  men  of  the  name  and 
character  of  their  inventor  ;  and  in  the  course  of  time  have  not  only 
tranquillized  the  minds  and  dissipated  the  fears  of  the  tender  sex  and 
their  timorous  children,  but  have  almost  annihilated  that  panic,  terror, 
and  superstitious  horror  which  was  once  almost  universal  in  violent 
storms  of  thunder  and  lightning."  (Adams's  Works,  vol.  I.  p.  661.) 

The  Latin  motto  universally  applied  to  Franklin 
at  this  time,  Eripuit  ccelo  fulmen  septrumque  tyrannis> 
has  usually  been  attributed  to  Turgot,  the  French 
Minister  of  Finance  ;  but  Adams  believed  that  Sir 
William  Jones  was  the  author  of  it.  Turgot  made 
an  alteration  in  it.  As  usually  understood,  the  last 

3" 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

half  referred  to  the  American  colonies  delivered 
from  the  oppression  of  Great  Britain  ;  but  as  Frank 
lin  grew  to  be  more  and  more  the  favorite  of  that 
large  class  of  people  in  Europe  who  were  opposed 
to  monarchy,  and  who  believed  that  he  would  soon 
be  instrumental  in  destroying  or  dethroning  all  kings 
and  abolishing  all  monarchical  government,  Turgot 
suggested  that  the  motto  should  read,  Eripuit  ccelo 
fulmen  ;  mox  septra  tyrannis,  which  may  be  freely 
translated,  "  He  has  torn  the  lightning  from  the  sky  ; 
soon  he  will  tear  their  sceptres  from  the  kings." 

At  first  Adams  took  the  quarrelling  lightly,  trying 
to  ignore  and  keep  clear  of  it ;  but  in  a  little  while  he 
confesses  that  "  the  uncandor,  the  prejudices,  the  rage 
among  several  persons  here  make  me  sick  as  death." 
After  about  a  month  he  was  so  disgusted  with  the 
service,  so  fully  convinced  that  the  public  business 
was  being  delayed  and  neglected  on  account  of  the 
disputes,  that  he  determined  to  try  to  efifect  a  change. 
He  therefore  wrote  to  Samuel  Adams,  then  in  Con 
gress,  declaring  that  the  affairs  of  the  embassy  were 
in  confusion,  prodigious  sums  of  money  expended, 
large  sums  yet  due,  but  no  account-books  or  docu 
ments  ;  the  commissioners  lived  expensively,  each 
one  at  the  rate  of  from  three  to  six  thousand  pounds 
a  year ;  this  would  necessarily  continue  as  long  as 
their  salaries  were  not  definitely  fixed,  and  it  would 
be  impossible  to  get  an  account  of  the  expenditure 
of  the  public  money.  Equally  ridiculous  was  the 
arrangement  which  made  the  envoys  half  ambassa 
dors  and  half  commercial  agents.  Instead  of  all 
this  he  suggested  that  Congress  separate  the  offices 

312 


FRANKLIN    TEARS   THli    LIGHTNING    FROM    THE   SKY   AND    THE   SCEPTRE 

FROM    THE   TYRANTS 
( From  a  French  engraving) 


EMBASSY   TO   FRANCE  AND   ITS   SCANDALS 

of  public  ministers  from  those  of  commercial  agents, 
recall  all  the  envoys  except  one,  define  with  pre 
cision  the  salary  he  should  receive,  and  see  that  he 
got  no  more. 

This  is  what  Lee  should  have  done  long  before. 
Franklin  had  indeed  recommended  a  change  in  one 
of  his  letters,  but  not  with  such  force  as  to  cause  its 
adoption.  Now  that  Adams  had  set  the  example, 
they  all  wrote  letters  in  the  succeeding  months  beg 
ging  for  reform.  The  wisdom  of  Adams's  plan  was 
so  apparent  that  when  the  facts  were  laid  before 
Congress  it  was  quickly  adopted  and  Franklin  made 
sole  plenipotentiary. 

But  Lee  and  Izard  retained  their  missions  to  other 
countries  and  remained  in  Paris,  renewing  their  dis 
cussions  and  attacks  on  Franklin  until  the  subject 
was  again  brought  before  Congress,  and  it  was  pro 
posed  to  order  all  of  them  back  to  America  and 
send  others  in  their  stead.  Franklin  had  a  narrow 
escape.  The  large  committee  which  had  the  ques 
tion  before  it  was  at  one  time  within  a  couple  of 
votes  of  recalling  him  and  sending  Arthur  Lee  in 
his  place,  which,  whatever  were  the  failings  of 
Franklin,  would  have  been  a  terrible  misfortune. 
The  French  minister  to  the  United  States,  M. 
Gerard,  came  to  the  rescue.  He  disclosed  the  ex 
treme  favor  with  which  the  French  government  re 
garded  Franklin  and  its  detestation  of  Lee.  Frank 
lin's  wonderful  reputation  in  Europe  saved  him,  for 
it  would  have  been  folly  to  recall  under  a  cloud  the 
one  man  whom  our  allies  took  such  delight  in 
honoring. 


PLEASURES   AND    DIPLOMACY    IN    FRANCE 

CONGRESS  not  only  refused  to  recall  Franklin,  but 
relieved  him  entirely  of  the  presence  of  Lee  and 
Izard,  so  that  the  remaining  six  years  of  his  service 
were  peaceful  and  can  be  very  briefly  described. 
The  improvement  in  the  management  of  the  em 
bassy  which  immediately  followed  shows  what  a 
serious  mistake  the  previous  arrangement  had  been. 
Left  entirely  to  his  own  devices,  and  master  of  the 
situation,  he  began  the  necessary  reforms  of  his  own 
accord,  had  complete  books  of  account  prepared, 
and  managed  the  business  without  difficulty. 

It  is  curious  to  read  of  the  diverse  functions  the 
old  man  of  seventy-four  had  to  perform  in  this  in 
fancy  of  our  diplomatic  service.  He  was  a  merchant, 
banker,  judge  of  admiralty,  consul,  director  of  the 
navy,  ambassador  to  France,  and  negotiator  with 
England  for  the  exchange  of  prisoners  and  for  peace, 
in  addition  to  attending  to  any  other  little  matter, 
personal  or  otherwise,  which  our  representatives  to 
other  countries  or  the  individual  States  of  the  Union 
might  ask  of  him.  The  crudeness  of  the  situation 
is  revealed  when  we  remember  that  not  only  was 
Congress  obtaining  loans  of  money  and  supplies  of 
arms  in  Europe,  but  several  of  the  States  were  doing 
the  same  thing,  and  it  was  often  rather  difficult  for 


PLEASURES  AND   DIPLOMACY   IN   FRANCE 

Franklin  to  assist  them  all  without  discrimination  or 
injustice. 

Paul  Jones  and  the  other  captains  of  our  navy 
who  were  cruising  against  British  commerce  on  that 
side  of  the  Atlantic  made  their  head-quarters  in 
French  ports,  and  were  necessarily  under  the  direc 
tion  of  Franklin  because  the  great  distance  made  it 
impossible  to  communicate  with  Congress  without 
months  of  delay.  That  they  were  lively  sailors  we 
may  judge  from  the  exploits  of  the  "  Black  Prince," 
which  in  three  months  on  the  English  coast  took 
thirty-seven  prizes,  and  brought  in  seventy- five 
within  a  year.  Franklin  had  to  act  as  a  court  of 
admiralty  in  the  matter  of  prizes  and  their  cargoes, 
settle  disputes  between  the  officers  and  men,  quiet 
discontent  about  their  pay  by  advancing  money, 
decide  what  was  to  be  done  with  mutineers,  and  see 
that  ships  were  refitted  and  repaired.  A  couple  of 
quotations  from  one  of  his  letters  to  Congress  will 
give  some  idea  of  his  duties : 

"In  the  mean  time,  I  may  just  mention  some  particulars  of  our 
disbursements.  Great  quantities  of  clothing,  arms,  ammunition, 
and  naval  stores,  sent  from  time  to  time  ;  payment  of  bills  from  Mr. 
Bingham,  one  hundred  thousand  livres  ;  Congress  bills  in  favor  of 
Hay  wood  &  Co.,  above  two  hundred  thousand;  advanced  to  Mr. 
Ross,  about  twenty  thousand  pounds  sterling ;  paid  Congress  drafts 
in  favor  of  returned  officers,  ninety-three  thousand  and  eighty 
livres ;  to  our  prisoners  in  England,  and  after  their  escape  to  help 
them  home,  and  to  other  Americans  here  in  distress,  a  great  sum,  I 
cannot  at  present  say  how  much  ;  supplies  to  Mr.  Hodge  for  fitting 
out  Captain  Conyngham,  very  considerable  ;  for  the  freight  of  ships 
to  carry  over  the  supplies,  great  sums  ;  to  Mr.  William  Lee  and  Mr. 
Izard,  five  thousand  five  hundred  pounds  sterling  ;  and  for  fitting 
the  frigates  Raleigh,  Alfred,  Boston,  Providence,  Alliance,  Ranger, 
&c.,  I  imagine  not  less  than  sixty  or  seventy  thousand  livres  each, 

315 


THE   TRUE  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

taken  one  with  another ;  and  for  the  maintenance  of  the  English 
prisoners,  I  believe,  when  I  get  in  all  the  accounts,  I  shall  find  one 
hundred  thousand  livres  not  sufficient,  having  already  paid  above 
sixty-five  thousand  on  that  article.  And  now,  the  drafts  of  the 
treasurer  of  the  loans  coming  very  fast  upon  me,  the  anxiety  I  have 
suffered,  and  the  distress  of  mind  lest  I  should  not  be  able  to  pay 
them,  have  for  a  long  time  been  very  great  indeed. " 

"With  regard  to  the  fitting  out  of  ships,  receiving  and  disposing 
of  cargoes,  and  purchasing  of  supplies,  I  beg  leave  to  mention,  that, 
besides  my  being  wholly  unacquainted  with  such  business,  the  dis 
tance  I  am  from  the  ports  renders  my  having  anything  to  do  with  it 
extremely  inconvenient.  Commercial  agents  have  indeed  been 
appointed  by  Mr.  William  Lee  ;  but  they  and  the  captains  are  con 
tinually  writing  for  my  opinion  or  orders,  or  leave  to  do  this  or  that, 
by  which  much  time  is  lost  to  them,  and  much  of  mine  taken  up  to 
little  purpose,  from  my  ignorance.  I  see  clearly,  however,  that 
many  of  the  captains  are  exorbitant  in  their  demands,  and  in  some 
cases  I  think  those  demands  are  too  easily  complied  with  by  the 
agents,  perhaps  because  the  commissions  are  in  proportion  to  the 
expense.  I  wish,  therefore,  the  Congress  would  appoint  the  consuls 
they  have  a  right  to  appoint  by  the  treaty,  and  put  into  their  hands 
all  that  sort  of  employment.  I  have  in  my  desk,  I  suppose,  not  less 
than  fifty  applications  from  different  ports,  praying  the  appointment, 
and  offering  to  serve  gratis  for  the  honor  of  it,  and  the  advantage  it 
gives  in  trade  ;  but  I  imagine,  that,  if  consuls  are  appointed,  they 
will  be  of  our  own  people  from  America,  who,  if  they  should  make 
fortunes  abroad,  might  return  with  them  to  their  country." 

He  was,  in  fact,  deciding  questions  and  assuming 
responsibilities  which  with  other  nations  and  after 
wards  with  our  own  belonged  to  the  home  govern 
ment.  He  had  great  discretionary  power,  an  in 
stance  of  which  may  be  given  in  connection  with 
the  subject  which  was  then  agitating  European 
countries,  of  4<  free  ships,  free  goods."  He  wrote  to 
Congress,  telling  that  body  how  the  matter  stood  : 

"  Whatever  may  formerly  have  been  the  law  of  nations,  all  the 
neutral  powers  at  the  instance  of  Russia  seem  at  present  disposed  to 

316 


PLEASURES   AND   DIPLOMACY   IN   FRANCE 

change  it,  and  to  enforce  the  rule  that  free  ships  shall  make  free 
goods,  except  in  the  case  of  contraband.  Denmark,  Sweden,  and 
Holland  have  already  acceded  to  the  proposition,  and  Portugal  is 
expected  to  follow.  France  and  Spain,  in  their  answers,  have  also 
expressed  their  approbation  of  it.  I  have,  therefore,  instructed  our 
privateers  to  bring  in  no  more  neutral  ships,  as  such  prizes  occasion 
much  litigation,  and  create  ill  blood." 

He  did  not  know  whether  Congress  would  approve 
of  this  new  rule  of  law,  but  he  took  his  chances. 
He  was  not  the  first  person  to  suggest  the  principle 
of  "  free  ships,  free  goods,"  nor  was  he  a  prominent 
advocate  of  it,  as  has  sometimes  been  implied  ;  for 
his  letter  shows  that  Russia  had  suggested  this  im 
provement  in  the  rules  of  international  law,  and  that 
other  nations  were  accepting  it.  He,  however,  urged 
on  a  number  of  occasions  that  war  should  be  con 
fined  exclusively  to  regularly  organized  armies  and 
fleets,  that  privateering  should  be  abolished,  that 
^  merchant  vessels  should  be  free  from  capture  even 
by  men-of-war,  and  that  fishermen,  farmers,  and  all 
who  were  engaged  in  supplying  the  necessaries  of 
life  should  be  allowed  to  pursue  their  avocations 
unmolested.  The  world  has  not  yet  caught  up  with 
this  suggestion. 

The  great  difficulty  during  the  last  two  or  three 
years  of  the  Revolution  was  the  want  of  money. 
The  supplies  sent  out  by  Beaumarchais  and  Deane 
in  the  early  part  of  the  struggle  merely  served  to 
start  it  In  the  long  run  expenses  increased  enor 
mously,  the  resources  of  the  country  were  drained, 
the  paper  money  depreciated  with  terrible  rapidity, 
and  we  were  compelled  to  continue  borrowing  from 
France  or  Holland.  We  borrowed  principal  and 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

then  borrowed  more  to  pay  the  interest  on  the  prin 
cipal,  and  a  large  part  of  this  business  passed  through 
Franklin's  hands. 

He  persuaded  the  French  government  to  lend, 
and  then  to  lend  again  to  pay  interest  He  was 
regarded  as  the  source  from  which  all  the  money 
was  to  come.  Congress  drew  on  him,  John  Jay  in 
Spain  drew  on  him,  he  had  to  pay  salaries  and  the 
innumerable  expenses  appertaining  to  the  fitting  out 
and  repairing  of  ships  and  the  exchange  of  pris 
oners.  These  calls  upon  him  were  made  often  from 
a  long  distance,  with  a  sort  of  blind  confidence  that 
he  would  in  some  way  manage  to  meet  them.  A 
captain  in  the  West  Indies  would  run  his  ship  into  a 
port  to  be  careened,  refitted,  and  supplied,  and 
coolly  draw  on  him  for  the  expense.  It  was  ex 
tremely  dangerous  sometimes  to  refuse  to  accept  a 
bill  presented  to  him,  and,  as  he  said  to  Congress,  • 
if  a  single  draft  for  interest  on  a  loan  went  to  protest 
there  would  be  "dreadful  consequences  of  ruin  to 
our  public  credit  both  in  America  and  Europe." 

He  suffered  enough  anxiety  and  strain  to  have 
destroyed  some  men.  When  Jay  went  to  Spain  in 
1780,  Congress  was  so  sure  he  would  obtain  money 
from  that  monarchy  that  it  drew  on  him.  But  as  Jay 
could  not  get  a  cent,  he  forwarded  the  drafts  to 
Franklin,  who  in  reply  wrote,  "the  storm  of  bills 
which  I  found  coming  upon  us  both  has  terrified  and 
vexed  me  to  such  a  degree  that  I  have  been  de 
prived  of  sleep,  and  so  much  indisposed  by  con 
tinual  anxiety  as  to  be  rendered  almost  incapable  of 
writing."  He  would  have  gone  under  in  this  storm 


PLEASURES   AND   DIPLOMACY   IN   FRANCE 

if  he  had  not  persuaded  the  French  government  to 
come  to  his  rescue. 

He  was  also  from  time  to  time  receiving  all  sorts 
of  proposals  of  peace  from  emissaries  or  agents  of 
the  British  government ;  and  he  had  a  long  corre 
spondence  on  this  subject  with  David  Hartley,  who 
helped  him  to  arrange  the  exchange  of  prisoners  in 
England.  Nearly  all  these  proposals  contained  a 
trap  of  some  kind,  as  that  we  should  break  our 
alliance  with  France  and  then  England  would  treat 
with  us,  or  that  there  should  be  a  peace  without  a 
definite  recognition  of  independence  ;  and  some  of 
them  may  have  been  intended  to  entrap  Franklin 
himself.  It  was,  in  any  event,  most  dangerous  and 
delicate  work,  for  it  was  corresponding  with  the  pub 
lic  enemy.  Most  men  in  Franklin's  position  would 
have  been  compelled  to  drop  it  entirely,  for  fear  of 
becoming  involved  in  some  serious  difficulty ;  for  it 
was  suspected,  if  not  actually  proved,  that  persons 
connected  with  our  own  embassy  in  France  were 
using  their  official  knowledge  to  speculate  in  stocks 
in  England.  But  Franklin  came  through  it  all 
unscathed. 

He  was  much  annoyed  by  numerous  applications 
from  people  who  wished  to  serve  in  the  American 
army.  Most  of  them  had  proved  failures  in  France 
and  were  burdens  on  their  relations.  In  the  early 
years  of  the  embassy  many  were  sent  out  who  gave 
endless  trouble  and  embarrassment  to  Washington 
and  Congress.  Out  of  the  whole  horde,  only  about 
three — Lafayette,  Steuben,  and  De  Kalb — were 
ever  anything  more  than  a  nuisance.  But,  to  avoid 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

giving  offence  to  the  French  people,  Franklin  was 
often  obliged  to  give  these  applicants  some  sort  of 
letter  of  recommendation,  and  he  drew  up  a  form 
which  he  sometimes  used  in  extreme  cases  : 


* '  The  bearer  of  this,  who  is  going  to  America,  presses  me  to  give 
him  a  letter  of  recommendation,  though  I  know  nothing  of  him,  not 
even  his  name.  This  may  seem  extraordinary,  but  I  assure  you  it  is 
not  uncommon  here.  Sometimes,  indeed,  one  unknown  person 
brings  another  equally  unknown,  to  recommend  him  ;  and  some 
times  they  recommend  one  another  !  As  to  this  gentleman,  I  must 
refer  you  to  himself  for  his  character  and  merits,  with  which  he  is 
certainly  better  acquainted  than  I  can  possibly  be.  I  recommend 
him,  however,  to  those  civilities,  which  every  stranger,  of  whom  one 
knows  no  harm,  has  a  right  to ;  and  I  request  you  will  do  him  all 
the  good  offices,  and  show  him  all  the  favor,  that,  on  further  ac 
quaintance,  you  shall  find  him  to  deserve.  I  have  the  honor  to  be, 
&c." 


The  old  man's  sense  of  humor  carried  him  through 
many  a  difficulty  ;  and  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  say 
that  the  management  of  all  this  multifarious  busi 
ness,  the  exercise  of  such  large  authority  and  dis 
cretion,  and  the  weight  of  such  responsibility  re 
quired  a  nervous  force,  patience,  tact,  knowledge  of 
men  and  affairs,  mental  equipoise,  broad,  cool  judg 
ment,  and  strength  of  character  which  comparatively 
few  men  in  America  possessed.  Indeed,  it  is  diffi 
cult  to  name  another  who  could  have  filled  the  po 
sition.  John  Adams  could  not  have  done  it.  He 
would  have  lost  his  temper  and  blazed  out  at  some 
point,  or  have  committed  some  huge  indiscretion 
that  would  have  wrecked  everything.  That  Lee, 
Izard,  or  even  Deane  could  have  held  the  post  would 
be  ridiculous  to  suppose. 

320 


PLEASURES  AND   DIPLOMACY   IN   FRANCE 

Adams  appeared  again  in  Paris  in  the  beginning 
of  the  year  1780,  having  been  sent  by  Congress  to 
await  England's  expected  willingness  to  treat  for 
peace.  He  was  authorized  to  receive  overtures  for  a 
general  peace,  and  also,  if  possible,  to  negotiate  a 
special  commercial  treaty  with  England.  He  had 
nothing  to  do  but  wait,  and  was  in  no  way  connected 
with  our  embassy  in  France.  But  being  presented 
at  court  and  asked  by  Vergennes  to  furnish  informa 
tion,  he  must  needs  try  to  make  an  impression.  He 
assailed  Vergennes,  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs, 
with  numerous  reasons  why  he  should  at  once  dis 
close  to  the  court  at  London  his  readiness  to  make 
a  commercial  treaty.  He  argued  about  the  ques 
tion  of  the  Continental  currency  and  how  it  should 
be  redeemed.  He  urged  the  sending  of  a  large 
naval  force  to  the  United  States  ;  and  when  told 
that  the  force  had  already  been  sent  without  solici 
tation,  he  attempted  to  prove  in  the  most  tactless 
and  injudicious  manner  that  it  was  not  without  so 
licitation,  but,  on  the  contrary,  the  king  had  been 
repeatedly  asked  for  it,  and  had  yielded  at  last  to 
importunity. 

This  conduct  was  so  offensive  to  Vergennes  that 
he  complained  of  it  to  Franklin,  who  was  obliged 
to  rebuke  Adams  ;  and  Congress,  when  the  matter 
came  before  it,  administered  another  rebuke.  Adams 
never  forgave  Franklin  for  this,  and  afterwards  pub 
licly  declared  that  Franklin  and  Vergennes  had  con 
spired  to  destroy  his  influence  and  ruin  him.  At 
the  time,  however,  he  had  the  good  sense  to  take 
his  rebuff  in  silence;  and  went  off  grumbling  to  Hol- 
21  321 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

land  to  see  if  something  could  not  be  done  to  render 
the  United  States  less  dependent  on  France. 

Adams  represented  a  large  party,  composed  prin 
cipally  of  New-Englanders,  who  did  not  like  the 
alliance  with  France  and  were  opposed  to  Franklin's 
policy  of  extreme  conciliation  and  friendliness  with 
the  French  court.  It  was  as  one  of  this  party  that 
Adams  had  attempted  to  give  Vergennes  a  lesson 
and  show  him  that  America  was  not  a  suppliant  and 
a  pauper.  Like  the  rest  of  his  party,  he  harbored 
the  bitter  thought  that  France  intended  to  lord  it 
over  the  United  States,  send  a  general  over  there 
who  would  control  all  the  military  operations,  get  all 
the  glory,  and  give  the  French  ever  after  a  prepon 
derating  influence.  He  thought  America  had  been 
too  free  in  expressions  of  gratitude  to  France,  that  a 
little  more  stoutness,  a  greater  air  of  independence 
and  boldness  in  our  demands,  would  procure  suffi 
cient  assistance  and  at  the  same  time  save  us  from 
the  calamity  of  passing  into  the  hands  of  a  tyrant 
who  would  be  worse  than  Great  Britain  had  been. 

His  attempt  at  stoutness,  however,  was  at  once 
checked  by  Vergennes,  who  refused  to  answer  any 
more  of  his  letters ;  and  there  is  no  doubt  that 
if  Adams's  plan  had  been  adopted  by  the  United 
States  government,  our  alliance  with  France  would 
have  been  jeopardized.  It  is  not  pleasant  to  think 
that  without  the  aid  of  France  the  Revolution  would 
have  failed  and  we  would  have  again  been  brought 
under  subjection  to  England  ;  but  it  is  unquestion 
ably  true,  and  as  Washington  had  no  hesitation  in 
frankly  admitting  it,  we  need  have  none. 

322 


PLEASURES   AND   DIPLOMACY  IN   FRANCE 

At  the  time  of  Adams's  attempted  interference 
with  Franklin's  policy  our  fortunes  were  at  a  very 
low  ebb.  The  resources  of  the  country  were  ex 
hausted  and  the  army  could  no  longer  be  maintained 
on  them.  The  soldiers  were  starving  and  naked, 
and  the  generals  could  not  show  themselves  without 
being  assailed  with  piteous  demands  for  food  and 
clothes.  France  had  much  to  gain  by  assisting  us 
against  England,  and  she  never  pretended  that  she 
had  not ;  but  in  all  the  documents  and  correspond 
ence  that  have  been  brought  to  light  there  is  no  evi 
dence  that  she  intended  to  take  advantage  of  our 
situation  or  that  her  ministers  had  designs  on  our 
liberties.  Indeed,  when  we  read  the  whole  story 
of  her  assistance,  including  the  secret  correspond 
ence,  it  will  be  found  almost  unequalled  for  its 
worthiness  of  purpose  and  for  the  honorable  means 
employed. 

Franklin  had  spent  several  years  at  the  court, 
knew  everybody,  and  thoroughly  understood  the 
situation. 


"  The  king,  a  young  and  virtuous  prince,  has,  I  am  persuaded,  a 
pleasure  in  reflecting  on  the  generous  benevolence  of  the  action  in 
assisting  an  oppressed  people,  and  proposes  it  as  a  part  of  the  glory 
of  his  reign.  I  think  it  right  to  increase  this  pleasure  by  our  thank 
ful  acknowledgments,  and  that  such  an  expression  of  gratitude  is  not 
only  our  duty,  but  our  interest.  A  different  conduct  seems  to  me 
what  is  not  only  improper  and  unbecoming,  but  what  may  be  hurtful 
to  us.  ...  It  is  my  intention  while  I  stay  here  to  procure  what 
advantages  I  can  for  our  country  by  endeavoring  to  please  this  court ; 
and  I  wish  I  could  prevent  anything  being  said  by  any  of  our  coun 
trymen  here  that  may  have  a  contrary  effect,  and  increase  an  opinion 
lately  showing  itself  in  Paris,  that  we  seek  a  difference,  and  with  a 
view  of  reconciling  ourselves  in  England.'' 

323 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

Please  the  court,  as  well  as  the  whole  French 
nation,  he  most  certainly  did.  His  communications 
with  Vergennes,  even  when  he  was  asking  for  money 
or  some  other  valuable  thing,  were  not  only  free 
from  offence,  but  so  adroit,  so  beautifully  and 
happily  expressed,  that  they  charmed  the  exquisite 
taste  of  Frenchmen.  There  is  not  space  in  this 
volume  to  give  expression  to  all  that  the  people  of 
the  court  thought  of  his  way  of  managing  the  busi 
ness  intrusted  to  him  by  America,  but  one  sentence 
from  a  letter  of  Vergennes  to  the  French  minister 
in  America  may  be  given  : 

'  *  If  you  are  questioned  respecting  our  opinion  of  Dr.  Franklin, 
you  may  without  hesitation  say  that  we  esteem  him  as  much  on  ac 
count  of  the  patriotism  as  the  wisdom  of  his  conduct,  and  it  has 
been  owing  in  a  great  part  to  this  cause,  and  to  the  confidence  we 
put  in  the  veracity  of  Dr.  Franklin,  that  we  have  determined  to 
relieve  the  pecuniary  embarrassments  in  which  he  has  been  placed 
by  Congress." 

It  is  not  likely  that  Gouverneur  Morris,  Jefferson, 
or  any  other  American  of  that  time  possessed  the 
qualifications  necessary  to  give  them  such  a  hold  on 
the  French  court  as  Franklin  had.  We  were  colo 
nists,  very  British  in  our  manners,  of  strong  energy 
and  intelligence,  but  quite  crude  in  many  things, 
and  capable  of  appearing  in  a  very  ridiculous  light 
in  French  society,  which  was  in  effect  the  society  of 
Louis  XIV.,  very  exacting,  and  by  no  means  so 
republican  as  it  has  since  become. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  French  disliked  every 
body  we  sent  to  them  at  that  time  except  Franklin. 
Deane  they  tolerated,  Izard  they  laughed  at,  Adams 

324 


PLEASURES   AND   DIPLOMACY   IN   FRANCE 

they  snubbed,  and  Lee  they  despised  as  a  stupid 
blunderer  who  knew  no  better  than  to  abuse  French 
manners  in  the  presence  of  his  servants,  who  spread 
the  tale  all  over  Paris.  But  dear,  delightful,  philo 
sophic,  shrewd,  economical,  naughty,  flirtatious,  and 
anecdote-telling  Franklin  seemed  like  one  of  them 
selves.  He  still  remains  the  only  American  that  the 
French  have  thoroughly  known  and  liked.  The 
more  we  read  of  him  the  more  confidence  we  are 
inclined  to  place  in  the  supposition  that  three  or 
four  centuries  back  he  must  have  had  a  French 
ancestor  who  migrated  to  England,  and  some  of 
whose  characteristics  were  reproduced  in  his  famous 
descendant.  The  little  fables  and  allegories  he 
wrote  to  please  them  read  like  translations  from  the 
most  subtle  literary  men  of  France.  Fancy  any 
other  American  or  Englishman  writing  to  Madame 
Brillon  the  letter  which  was  really  a  little  essay  after 
wards  known  as  the  "Ephemera,"  and  very  popular 
in  France. 

"  You  may  remember,  my  dear  friend,  that  when  we  lately  spent 
that  happy  day  in  the  delightful  garden  and  sweet  society  of  the 
Moulin  Joly,  I  stopped  a  little  in  one  of  our  walks,  and  stayed  some 
time  behind  the  company.  We  had  been  shown  numberless  skele 
tons  of  a  kind  of  little  fly,  called  an  ephemera,  whose  successive 
generations,  we  were  told,  were  bred  and  expired  within  the  day. 
I  happened  to  see  a  living  company  of  them  on  a  leaf,  who  appeared 
to  be  engaged  in  conversation.  You  know  I  understand  all  the 
inferior  animal  tongues.  My  too  great  application  to  the  study  of 
them  is  the  best  excuse  I  can  give  for  the  little  progress  I  have  made 
in  your  charming  language.  I  listened  through  curiosity  to  the  dis 
course  of  these  little  creatures  ;  but  as  they,  in  their  natural  vivacity, 
spoke  three  or  four  together,  I  could  make  but  little  of  their  conver 
sation.  I  found,  however,  by  some  broken  expressions  that  I  heard 
now  and  then,  they  were  disputing  warmly  on  the  merit  of  two 

325 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

foreign  musicians,  one  a  cousin,  the  other  a  moscheto  ;  in  which  dis 
pute  they  spent  their  time,  seemingly  as  regardless  of  the  shortness 
of  life  as  if  they  had  been  sure  of  living  a  month.  Happy  people  ! 
thought  I ;  you  are  certainly  under  a  wise,  just,  and  mild  govern 
ment,  since  you  have  no  public  grievances  to  complain  of,  nor  any 
subject  of  contention  but  the  perfections  and  imperfections  of  foreign 
music.  I  turned  my  head  from  them  to  an  old  grey-headed  one, 
who  was  single  on  another  leaf,  and  talking  to  himself.  Being 
amused  with  his  soliloquy,  I  put  it  down  in  writing,  in  hopes  it  will 
likewise  amuse  her  to  whom  I  am  so  much  indebted  for  the  most 
pleasing  of  all  amusements,  her  delicious  company  and  heavenly 
harmony."  .  .  . 

The  letter  is  too  long  to  quote  entire  ;  but  some 
of  the  fine  touches  in  the  passage  given  should  be 
observed.  He  refers  to  the  little  progress  he  had 
made  in  French,  and  he  certainly  spoke  that  lan 
guage  badly,  although  he  read  it  with  ease.  He 
probably  had  a  large  vocabulary ;  but  he  trampled 
all  over  the  grammar,  as  Adams  tells  us.  He  man 
aged,  however,  by  means  of  a  little  humor  to  make 
this  defect  endear  him  still  more  to  the  people. 
The  musical  dispute  of  the  insects  is  a  hit  at  a  simi 
lar  dispute  among  the  Parisians  over  two  musicians, 
Gluck  and  Picini.  But  what  a  depth  of  subtlety  is 
shown  in  the  suggestion  which  follows,  that  the 
French  were  under  such  a  wise  government  and 
such  a  good  king  that  they  could  afford  to  waste 
their  time  in  disputing  about  trifles  !  No  wonder 
that  all  the  notable  people  and  the  rulers  loved  him. 

This  single  delicately  veiled  point  was  alone  al 
most  sufficient  to  make  his  fortune  in  the  peculiar 
society  of  that  time.  It  was  in  such  perfect  taste, 
so  French,  such  a  rebuke  to  the  fanatics  who  were 
laying  the  foundations  of  the  Reign  of  Terror ;  and 

326 


PLEASURES  AND   DIPLOMACY   IN  FRANCE 

yet,  at  the  same  time,  Franklin,  as  the  apostle 
of  liberty,  was  regarded  by  many  of  those  fanatics 
as  one  of  themselves.  In  this  way  he  carried  with 
him  all  France. 

But  suppose  that  John  Adams  had  been  given  the 
opportunity  to  write  such  a  letter  to  a  French  lady ; 
what  would  he  have  done  ?  The  straightforward  fel 
low  would  probably  have  thought  it  his  religious, 
moral,  and  patriotic  duty  to  tell  her  that  the  govern 
ment  she  lived  under  was  wasteful  and  extravagant, 
and  was  plotting  to  destroy  the  liberties  of  America. 

Madame  Brillon,  for  whom  the  "  Ephemera"  was 
written,  was  a  charming  woman  and  more  domestic 
than  French  ladies  are  supposed  to  be.  For  her 
amusement  were  written  some  of  Franklin's  most 
famous  essays, — "The  Morals  of  Chess,"  "The  Dia 
logue  between  Franklin  and  the  Gout,"  "The  Story 
of  the  Whistle,"  "The  Handsome  and  Deformed 
Leg,"  and  "The  Petition  of  the  Left  Hand."  In  a 
letter  telling  how  the  "  Ephemera"  happened  to  be 
written  he  has  described  the  intimacy  he  and  his 
grandson  enjoyed  at  her  house  : 

"The  person  to  whom  it  was  addressed  is  Madame  Brillon,  a 
lady  of  most  respectable  character  and  pleasing  conversation  ;  mis 
tress  of  an  amiable  family  in  this  neighborhood,  with  which  I  spend 
an  evening  twice  every  week.  She  has,  among  other  elegant 
accomplishments,  that  of  an  excellent  musician ;  and  with  her 
daughter  who  sings  prettily,  and  some  friends  who  play,  she  kindly 
entertains  me  and  my  grandson  with  little  concerts,  a  cup  of  tea, 
and  a  game  of  chess.  I  call  this  my  Opera,  for  I  rarely  go  to  the 
Opera  at  Paris." 

Madame  Helvetius,  a  still  more  intimate  friend, 
was  a  very  different  sort  of  woman.  She  was  the 

327 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

widow  of  a  literary  man  of  some  celebrity,  and  she 
and  Franklin  were  always  carrying  on  an  absurd  sort 
of  flirtation.  They  hugged  and  kissed  each  other  in 
public,  and  exchanged  extravagant  notes  which  were 
sometimes  mock  proposals  of  marriage,  although 
some  have  supposed  them  to  have  been  real  ones. 
He  wrote  a  sort  of  essay  addressed  to  her,  in  which  he 
imagines  himself  in  the  other  world,  where  he  meets 
her  husband,  and,  after  the  exchange  of  many  clever 
remarks  with  him  about  madame,  he  discovers  that 
Helvetius  is  married  to  his  own  deceased  wife,  Mrs. 
Franklin,  who  declares  herself  rather  better  pleased 
with  him  than  she  had  been  with  the  Philadelphia 
printer. 

"  Indignant  at  this  refusal  of  my  Eurydice,  I  immediately  resolved 
to  quit  those  ungrateful  shades,  and  return  to  this  good  world  again, 
to  behold  the  sun  and  you  !  Here  I  am :  let  us  avenge  our 
selves  r ' 

Such  sport  over  deceased  wives  and  husbands 
would  not  be  in  good  taste  in  America  or  England, 
but  it  was  correct  enough  in  France.  One  of  his 
short  notes  to  Madame  Helvetius  has  also  been  pre 
served  : 


"  Mr.  Franklin  never  forgets  any  party  at  which  Madame  Helve 
tius  is  expected.  He  even  believes  that  if  he  were  engaged  to  go  to 
Paradise  this  morning,  he  would  pray  for  permission  to  remain  on 
earth  until  half-past  one,  to  receive  the  embrace  promised  him  at  the 
Turgots'." 

Mrs.  Adams  has  left  a  description  of  Madame 
Helvetius  which  admirers  of  Franklin  have  in  vain 

328 


PLEASURES   AND   DIPLOMACY   IN   FRANCE 

attempted  to  explain  away  by  saying  that  all  French 
women  were  like  her,  and  that  she  was,  after  all,  a 
really  noble  person : 

"She  entered  the  room  with  a  careless,  jaunty  air;  upon  seeing 
ladies  who  were  strangers  to  her,  she  bawled  out,  *  Ah  !  mon  Dieu, 
where  is  Franklin?  Why  did  you  not  tell  me  there  were  ladies 
here  ?'  You  must  suppose  her  speaking  all  this  in  French.  *  How 
I  look  !'  said  she,  taking  hold  of  a  chemise  made  of  tiffany,  which 
she  had  on  over  a  blue  lute-string,  and  which  looked  as  much  upon 
the  decay  as  her  beauty,  for  she  was  once  a  handsome  woman  ;  her 
hair  was  frizzled ;  over  it  she  had  a  small  straw  hat,  with  a  dirty 
gauze  half-handkerchief  round  it,  and  a  bit  of  dirtier  gauze  than 
ever  my  maids  wore  was  bowed  on  behind.  She  had  a  black  gauze 
scarf  thrown  over  her  shoulders.  She  ran  out  of  the  room  ;  when 
she  returned,  the  Doctor  entered  at  one  door,  she  at  the  other ; 
upon  which  she  ran  forward  to  him,  caught  him  by  the  hand, 
'  Helas  !  Franklin  ;'  then  gave  him  a  double  kiss,  one  upon  each 
cheek,  and  another  upon  his  forehead.  When  we  went  into  the 
room  to  dine,  she  was  placed  between  the  Doctor  and  Mr.  Adams. 
She  carried  on  the  chief  of  the  conversation  at  dinner,  frequently 
locking  her  hand  into  the  Doctor's,  and  sometimes  spreading  her 
arms  upon  the  backs  of  both  the  gentlemen's  chairs,  then  throwing 
her  arm  carelessly  upon  the  Doctor's  neck. 

"  I  should  have  been  greatly  astonished  at  this  conduct,  if  the 
good  Doctor  had  not  told  me  that  in  this  lady  I  should  see  a  genuine 
Frenchwoman,  wholly  free  from  affectation  or  stiffness  of  behavior, 
and  one  of  the  best  women  in  the  world.  For  this  I  must  take  the 
Doctor's  word ;  but  I  should  have  set  her  down  for  a  very  bad  one, 
although  sixty  years  of  age,  and  a  widow.  I  own  I  was  highly  dis 
gusted,  and  never  wish  for  an  acquaintance  with  any  ladies  of  this 
cast.  After  dinner  she  threw  herself  upon  a  settee,  where  she 
showed  more  than  her  feet.  She  had  a  little  lap-dog,  who  was,  next 
to  the  Doctor,  her  favorite.  This  she  kissed,  and  when  he  wet  the 
floor  she  wiped  it  up  with  her  chemise.  This  is  one  of  the  Doctor's 
most  intimate  friends,  with  whom  he  dines  once  every  week,  and 
she  with  him.  She  is  rich,  and  is  my  near  neighbor ;  but  I  have  not 
yet  visited  her.  Thus  you  see,  my  dear,  that  manners  differ  exceed 
ingly  in  different  countries.  I  hope,  however,  to  find  amongst  the 
French  ladies  manners  more  consistent  with  my  ideas  of  decency,  or 
I  shall  be  a  mere  recluse."  (Letters  of  Mrs.  John  Adams,  p.  252.) 

329 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

It  is  not  likely  that  Franklin  had  the  respect  for 
Madame  Helvetius  that  he  had  for  Madame  Brillon. 
She  was,  strange  to  say,  an  illiterate  woman,  as  one 
of  her  letters  to  him  plainly  shows.  Some  of  his 
letters  to  her  read  as  if  he  were  purposely  feeding 
her  inordinate  vanity.  He  tells  her  in  one  that  her 
most  striking  quality  is  her  artless  simplicity ;  that 
statesmen,  philosophers,  and  poets  flock  to  her ;  that 
he  and  his  friends  find  in  her  "sweet  society  that 
charming  benevolence,  that  amiable  attention  to 
oblige,  that  disposition  to  please  and  to  be  pleased 
which  we  do  not  always  find  in  the  society  of  one 
another."  She  lived  at  Auteuil,  and  he  and  the 
Abbe  Morellet  and  others  called  her  "Our  Lady 
of  Auteuil."  They  boasted  much  of  their  love  for 
her,  and  enjoyed  many  wonderful  conversations  on 
literature  and  philosophy,  and  much  gayety  at  her 
house,  which  they  called  "The  Academy." 

After  Franklin  had  returned  to  America  the  Abbe 
Morellet,  who  was  an  active  and  able  man  in  his 
way,  wrote  him  many  amusing  letters  about  their 
lady  and  her  friends. 

"I  shall  never  forget  the  happiness  I  have  enjoyed  in  knowing 
you  and  seeing  you  intimately.  I  write  to  you  from  Auteuil,  seated 
in  your  arm  chair,  on  which  I  have  engraved  Benjamin  Franklin 
hie  sedebat,  and  having  by  my  side  the  little  bureau,  which  you  be 
queathed  to  me  at  parting  with  a  drawerful  of  nails  to  gratify  the 
love  of  nailing  and  hammering,  which  I  possess  in  common  with 
you.  But,  believe  me,  I  have  no  need  of  all  these  helps  to  cherish 
your  endeared  remembrance  and  to  love  you. 

"  '  Dum  memor  ipse  mei,  dum  spiritus  hos  reget  artus.'  " 

One  of  the  cleverest  letters  Franklin  wrote  while 
in  France  was  addressed  to  an  old  English  friend, 

330 


PLEASURES   AND   DIPLOMACY   IN   FRANCE 

Mrs.  Thompson,  who  had  called  him  a  rebel.  "  You 
are  too  early,  hussy"  he  says,  "  as  well  as  too  saucy, 
in  calling  me  rebel ;  you  should  wait  for  the  event, 
which  will  determine  whether  it  is  a  rebellion  or 
only  a  revolution.  Here  the  ladies  are  more  civil  ; 
they  call  us  les  insurgens,  a  character  that  usually 
pleases  them."  He  continues  chaffing  her,  and  de 
scribes  himself  as  wearing  his  own  hair  in  France, 
where  every  one  else  had  on  a  great  powdered  wig. 
If  they  would  only  dismiss  their  friseurs  and  give 
him  half  the  money  they  pay  to  them,  "I  could 
then  enlist  these  friseurs,  who  are  at  least  one  hun 
dred  thousand,  and  with  the  money  I  would  main 
tain  them,  make  a  visit  with  them  to  England,  and 
dress  the  heads  of  your  ministers  and  privy  coun 
cillors,  which  I  conceive  at  present  to  be  un  peu 
derangees.  Adieu,  madcap  ;  and  believe  me  ever, 
your  affectionate  friend  and  humble  servant." 

In  the  large  house  of  M.  de  Chaumont,  which 
he  occupied,  he,  of  course,  had  his  electrical  appa 
ratus,  and  played  doctor  by  giving  electricity  to 
paralytic  people  who  were  brought  to  him.  On 
one  occasion  he  made  the  wrong  contact,  and  fell 
to  the  floor  senseless.  He  had,  also,  a  small  print 
ing-press  with  type  made  in  the  house  by  his  own 
servants,  and  he  used  it  to  print  the  little  essays 
with  which  he  amused  his  friends. 

His  friendships  in  France  seem  to  have  been 
mostly  among  elderly  people.  There  are  only  a  few 
traces  of  his  fondness  for  young  girls,  and  we  find 
none  of  those  pleasant  intimacies  such  as  he  en 
joyed  with  Miss  Ray,  Miss  Stevenson,  or  the  daugh- 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

ters  of  the  Bishop  of  St.  Asaph.  Unmarried  women 
in  France  were  too  much  restricted  to  be  capable 
of  such  friendships  even  with  an  elderly  man.  But 
among  his  papers  in  the  collection  of  the  American 
Philosophical  Society  there  is  a  letter  written  by 
some  French  girl  who  evidently  had  taken  a  fancy 
to  him  and  playfully  insisted  on  calling  herself  his 
daughter. 

"  MY  DEAR   FATHER  AMERICAIN 

"  god  Bess  liberty  !  I  drunk  with  all  my  heart  to  the  republick  of 
the  united  provinces.  I  am  prepared  to  my  departure  if  you  will 
and  if  it  possible,  give  me  I  pray  you  leave  to  go.  I  shall  be 
happy  of  to  live  under  the  laws  of  venerable  good  man  richard. 
adieu  my  dear  father  I  am  with  the  most  respect  and  tenderness 
"  Your  humble  Servant 

"  and  your  daughter 
"AuxerreMM.  1778."  "  J.    B.    J.    CONWAY. 

Besides  the  dining  abroad,  which,  he  tells  us,  oc 
curred  six  days  out  of  seven,  he  gave  a  dinner  at 
home  every  Sunday  for  any  Americans  that  were  in 
Paris;  "and  I  then,"  he  says,  "have  my  grandson 
Ben,  with  some  other  American  children  from  the 
school." 

New-Englanders  had  very  economical  ideas  in 
those  days,  and  when  it  was  learned  that  Franklin 
entertained  handsomely  in  Paris  there  was  a  great 
fuss  over  it  in  the  Connecticut  newspapers. 

The  fete-champetre  that  was  given  to  him  by  the 
Countess  d'Houdetot  must  have  been  a  ridiculous 
and  even  nauseous  dose  of  adulation  to  swallow  ; 
but  he  no  doubt  went  through  it  all  without  a  smile, 
and  it  serves  to  show  the  extraordinary  position  that 

332 


PLEASURES   AND   DIPLOMACY   IN   FRANCE 

he  occupied.  He  was  more  famous  in  France  than 
Voltaire  or  any  Frenchman. 

A  formal  account  of  the  fete  was  prepared  by 
direction  of  the  countess,  and  copies  circulated  in 
Paris.  The  victim  of  it  is  described  as  "  the  ven 
erable  sage"  who,  "  with  his  gray  hairs  flowing  down 
upon  his  shoulders,  his  staff  in  his  hand,  the  spec 
tacles  of  wisdom  on  his  nose,  was  the  perfect  picture 
of  true  philosophy  and  virtue  ;"  and  this  sentence  is 
as  complete  a  summary  as  could  be  made  of  what 
Franklin  was  to  the  French  people. 

As  soon  as  he  arrived  the  countess  addressed  him 
in  verse  : 

"Soul  of  the  heroes  and  the  wise, 
Oh,  Liberty  !  first  gift  of  the  gods. 
Alas  !  at  too  great  a  distance  do  we  offer  our  vows. 
As  lovers  we  offer  homage 
To  the  mortal  who  has  made  citizens  happy." 

The  company  walked  through  the  gardens  and 
then  sat  down  to  the  banquet.  At  the  first  glass  of 
wine  they  rose  and  sang, — 

"  Of  Benjamin  let  us  celebrate  the  glory ; 
Let  us  sing  the  good  he  has  done  to  mortals. 
In  America  he  will  have  altars  ; 
And  in  Sanoy  let  us  drink  to  his  glory. ' ' 

At  the  second  glass  the  countess  sang  a  similar 
refrain,  at  the  third  glass  the  viscount  sang,  and  so 
on  for  seven  glasses,  each  verse  more  extraordinary 
than  the  others.  Virtue  herself  had  assumed  the 
form  of  Benjamin  ;  he  was  greater  than  William 
Tell  ;  Philadelphia  must  be  such  a  delightful  place  ; 

333 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

the  French  would  gladly  dwell  there,  although  there 
was  neither  ball  nor  play.  But  Sanoy  was  Philadel 
phia  as  long  as  dear  Benjamin  remained  there.  He 
was  led  to  the  garden  to  plant  a  tree,  with  more 
singing  about  the  lightning  that  he  had  drawn  from 
the  sky,  and  the  lightning,  of  course,  would  never 
strike  that  tree.  Finally  he  was  allowed  to  depart 
with  another  song  of  adulation  addressed  to  him 
after  he  was  seated  in  the  carriage. 

Now  that  more  than  a  hundred  years  have  passed 
it  is  gratifying  to  our  national  pride  to  reflect  that  a 
man  who  was  so  thoroughly  American  in  his  origin 
and  education  should  have  been  worshipped  in  this 
way  by  an  alien  race  as  no  other  man,  certainly  no 
other  American,  was  ever  worshipped  by  foreigners. 
But  the  enjoyment  of  this  stupendous  reputation, 
overshadowing  and  dwarfing  the  Adamses,  Jays,  and 
all  other  public  men  who  went  to  Europe,  was 
marred  by  some  unpleasant  consequences.  Jeal 
ousies  were  aroused  not  only  among  individuals,  but 
to  a  certain  extent  among  all  the  American  people. 
It  was  too  much.  He  had  ceased  to  be  one  of  them. 
It  was  rumored  that  he  would  never  return  to  Amer 
ica,  but  would  resign  and  settle  down  among  those 
strangers  who  treated  him  as  though  he  were  a  god. 

It  was  also  inevitable  that  a  worse  suspicion 
should  arise.  He  was  too  subservient,  it  was  said, 
to  France.  He  yielded  everything  to  her.  He  was 
turning  her  from  an  ally  into  a  ruler.  He  could  no 
longer  see  her  designs  ;  or,  if  he  saw  them,  he  ap 
proved  of  them.  This  suspicion  gained  such  force 
that  it  was  the  controlling  principle  with  Adams  and 

334 


PLEASURES  AND   DIPLOMACY   IN   FRANCE 

Jay  when  they  went  to  Paris  to  arrange  the  treaty 
of  peace  with  England  after  the  surrender  of  Lord 
Cornwallis  at  Yorktown  in  October,  1781.  We 
have  seen  instances  in  our  own  time  of  our  ministers 
to  Great  Britain  becoming  very  unpopular  at  home 
because  they  were  liked  in  England,  and  in  Frank 
lin's  case  this  feeling  was  vastly  greater  than  any 
thing  we  have  known  in  recent  years,  because  his 
popularity  in  France  was  prodigious,  and  he  avow 
edly  acted  upon  the  principle  that  it  was  best  to  be 
complaisant  to  the  French  court. 

During  the  winter  which  followed  the  surrender 
of  Lord  Cornwallis  overtures  of  peace  were  made 
by  England  to  Franklin,  as  representing  America, 
and  to  Vergennes,  as  representing  France,  and  they 
became  more  earnest  in  March  after  the  Tory  min 
istry,  which  had  been  conducting  the  war,  was  driven 
from  power.  In  April  the  negotiations  with  Frank 
lin  were  well  under  way,  and  he  continued  to  con 
duct  them  until  June,  when  he  was  taken  sick  and 
incapacitated  for  three  months.  After  his  recovery 
he  took  only  a  minor  part  in  the  proceedings,  for  Jay 
and  Adams  had  meanwhile  arrived. 

Congress  had  appointed  Adams,  Jay,  Franklin, 
Jefferson,  and  Laurens  commissioners  to  arrange  the 
treaty,  and  made  Adams  head  of  the  commission. 
When  the  negotiations  began,  however,  Franklin  was 
the  only  commissioner  at  Paris,  and  necessarily  took 
charge  of  all  the  business.  Just  before  he  was  taken 
sick  Jay  arrived,  and  he  and  Jay  conducted  affairs 
until  Adams  joined  them  at  the  end  of  October. 
Laurens,  who  had  been  a  prisoner  in  England,  did 

335 


THE   TRUE  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

not  reach  Paris  until  just  before  the  preliminary 
treaty  was  signed,  and  Jefferson,  being  detained  in 
America,  took  no  part  in  the  proceedings. 

While  Franklin  was  cariying  on  the  negotiations 
alone,  he  insisted  on  most  of  the  terms  which  were 
afterwards  agreed  upon  :  first  of  all,  independence, 
and,  in  addition  to  that,  the  right  to  fish  on  the  New 
foundland  Banks  and  a  settlement  of  boundaries  ; 
but  he  added  a  point  not  afterwards  pressed  by  the 
others,- — namely,  that  Canada  should  be  ceded  to 
the  United  States.  In  exchange  for  Canada  he  was 
prepared  to  allow  some  compensation  to  the  Tories 
for  their  loss  of  property  during  the  war.  Adams 
and  Jay,  on  taking  up  the  negotiations,  dropped 
Canada  entirely  and  insisted  stoutly  to  the  end  that 
there  should  be  no  compensation  whatever  to  the 
Tories. 

Franklin's  admirers  have  always  contended  that  it 
would  have  been  better  if  Jay  and  Adams  had  kept 
away  altogether,  for  in  that  case  Franklin  would 
have  secured  all  that  they  got  for  us  and  Canada 
besides.  This,  however,  is  mere  supposition,  one  of 
those  vague  ideas  of  what  might  have  been  without 
any  proof  to  support  it.  Franklin  pressed  the  ces 
sion  of  Canada,  it  is  true  ;  but  there  is  no  evidence 
that  it  would  have  been  granted.  At  that  time  the 
people  of  the  United  States  appear  not  to  have 
wanted  the  land  of  snow,  and  ever  since  then  the  gen 
eral  opinion  has  been  that  we  have  enough  to  manage 
already,  and  are  better  off  without  a  country  vexed 
with  serious  political  controversies  with  its  French 
population  and  the  Roman  Catholic  school  question. 

336 


PLEASURES  AND   DIPLOMACY   IN   FRANCE 

On  the  whole,  it  would  not  have  been  well  for 
Franklin  to  have  continued  to  conduct  the  negotia 
tions  alone.  The  situation  was  difficult,  and  the  united 
efforts  and  varied  ability  of  at  least  three  commis 
sioners  were  required.  Neither  Franklin  nor  Jay 
knew  much  about  the  fisheries  question,  and  they 
might  have  been  forced  to  yield  on  this  point.  But 
Adams,  from  his  long  experience  in  conducting  liti 
gation  for  the  Massachusetts  fishing  interests,  was 
better  prepared  on  this  subject  than  any  other 
American,  and  it  was  generally  believed  by  the 
public  men  of  that  time  that  the  important  rights 
we  secured  on  the  Newfoundland  Banks  were  due 
almost  entirely  to  his  skill.  He  was  also  more 
familiar  with  the  boundary  question  between  Maine 
and  New  Brunswick,  and  had  brought  with  him  docu 
ments  from  Massachusetts  which  were  invaluable. 

While  Jay  and  Franklin  were  acting  together  be 
fore  the  arrival  of  Adams,  a  serious  question  arose 
about  the  commission  of  Oswald,  the  British  nego 
tiator  who  had  come  over  to  Paris.  He  was  em 
powered  to  treat  with  the  "Colonies  or  Plantations," 
and  nowhere  in  the  document  was  the  term  United 
States  of  America  used.  Jay  refused  to  treat  with 
a  man  who  held  such  a  commission.  Franklin  and 
Vergennes  vainly  urged  that  it  was  a  mere  form, 
and  that  Great  Britain  had  already  in  several  ways 
acknowledged  the  independence  of  the  United 
States.  Oswald  showed  an  article  of  his  instructions 
which  authorized  him  to  grant  complete  indepen 
dence  to  the  thirteen  colonies,  and  he  offered  to 
write  a  letter  declaring  that  he  treated  with  them 
22  337 


THE  TRUE  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

as  an  independent  power ;  but  Jay  was  inflexible, 
and  in  this  he  seems  to  have  been  right. 

Franklin  made  a  great  mistake  in  not  agreeing 
with  him,  for  in  the  suspicious  state  of  people's 
minds  at  that  time  his  conduct  in  this  respect  was 
taken  as  proof  positive  of  his  subserviency  to  the 
French  court.  Jay  suspected  that  Vergennes  ad 
vised  accepting  Oswald's  commission  so  as  to  pre 
vent  a  clear  admission  of  independence,  and  thus 
keep  the  United  States  embroiled  with  England  as 
long  as  possible.  In  order  to  support  his  opposition 
to  Jay,  Franklin  was  obliged  to  talk  about  his  con 
fidence  in  the  French  court,  its  past  generosity  and 
friendliness,  and  also  to  call  attention  to  the  instruc 
tion  of  Congress  that  the  commissioners  should  do 
nothing  without  the  knowledge  of  the  French  gov 
ernment,  and  in  all  final  decisions  be  guided  by 
that  government's  advice. 

This  instruction  had  been  passed  by  Congress 
after  much  debate  and  hesitation,  and  was  finally 
carried,  it  is  said,  through  the  influence  of  the 
French  minister.  Its  adoption  was  a  mistake  ;  with 
out  it  the  commissioners  would  probably  of  their 
own  accord  have  sought  the  advice  of  Vergennes ; 
but  a  positive  order  to  do  so  put  them  in  an  undig 
nified  and  humiliating  position.  Franklin  had  been 
so  long  intimate  with  Vergennes  and  was  so  accus 
tomed  to  consulting  him  that  the  instruction  was 
superfluous  as  to  him.  His  reputation  was  so  great 
in  France  and  his  tact  so  perfect  that  he  was  in  no 
danger  of  feeling  overshadowed  or  subdued  by  such 
consultations  ;  but  Jay  and  Adams  so  thoroughly 

338 


PLEASURES  AND  DIPLOMACY  IN  FRANCE 

detested  the  instruction  that  they  had  made  up  their 
minds  to  disregard  it  altogether. 

"Would  you  break  your  instruction?"  said 
Franklin. 

"Yes,"  said  Jay,  "as  I  break  this  pipe,"  and  he 
threw  the  pieces  into  the  fire. 

Jay's  firmness  compelled  Oswald  to  obtain  a  new 
commission  in  the  proper  form,  and  while  he  de 
serves  credit  for  this  and  also  for  his  principle,  "We 
must  be  honest  and  grateful  to  our  allies,  but  think 
for  ourselves,"  he  seems  in  the  light  of  later  evidence 
to  have  been  mistaken  in  his  deep  mistrust  of  the 
French  court.  His  opinions  have  been  briefly  stated 
by  Adams  : 

"  Mr.  Jay  likes  Frenchmen  as  little  as  Mr.  Lee  and  Mr.  Izard  did. 
He  says  they  are  not  a  moral  people  ;  they  know  not  what  it  is ;  he 
don't  like  any  Frenchman  ;  the  Marquis  de  Lafayette  is  clever,  but 
he  is  a  Frenchman.  Our  allies  don't  play  fair,  he  told  me  ;  they 
were  endeavoring  to  deprive  us  of  the  fishery,  the  western  lands, 
and  the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi ;  they  would  even  bargain  with 
the  English  to  deprive  us  of  them ;  they  want  to  play  the  western 
lands,  Mississippi,  and  whole  Gulf  of  Mexico  into  the  hands  of 
Spain."  (Adams's  Works,  vol.  iii.  p.  303.) 

Jay  had  had  a  very  bitter  experience  in  Spain, 
where  the  cold  haughtiness  and  chicanery  of  the 
court  had  made  him  feel  that  he  was  among  enemies. 
The  instructions  sent  to  him  by  Congress  had  been 
intercepted,  and  instead  of  receiving  them  as  secret 
orders  from  his  government,  they  had  been  handed 
to  him  by  the  Spanish  prime-minister  after  that  offi 
cial  had  read  them.  He  was  accordingly  prepared 
to  think  that  the  French  government  was  no  better. 

339 


THE  TRUE  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

In  a  certain  sense  there  were  grounds  for  his  sus 
picion  of  France.  She  was  interested  in  the  fisheries 
on  the  Banks  of  Newfoundland,  and  would  naturally 
like  to  have  a  share  in  them.  It  was  also  obviously 
her  policy  to  prevent  the  United  States  and  England 
from  becoming  too  friendly  and  from  making  too 
firm  a  peace,  for  fear  that  they  might  unite  at  some 
future  time  against  her.  If  she  could  get  them  to 
make  a  sort  of  half  peace  with  a  number  of  subjects 
left  unsettled,  about  which  there  would  be  difficulties 
for  many  years,  it  would  be  a  great  advantage  to 
her. 

Spain  wanted  to  secure  the  control  of  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico,  the  exclusive  navigation  of  the  Mississippi, 
and  the  possession  of  the  lands  west  of  that  river, 
and  France,  as  her  ally,  might  be  expected  to  assist 
her  to  obtain  these  concessions.  Arguments  and 
suggestions  favoring  all  these  projects  were  unques 
tionably  used  by  Frenchmen  at  that  time,  and  no 
doubt  Vergennes  and  other  public  men  often  had 
them  in  mind.  It  was  their  duty  at  least  to  consider 
them.  But  there  is  no  evidence  that  they  actively 
promoted  these  schemes  or  acted  in  any  other  than 
an  honorable  manner  towards  us. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  our  commercial  relations  with 
England  were  left  unsettled.  England  claimed, 
among  other  things,  the  right  to  search  our  ships, 
and  there  was  great  discontent  over  this  for  a  long 
time,  amply  sufficient  to  keep  us  from  friendship 
with  England  until  the  question  was  finally  set 
tled  by  the  war  of  1812.  Adams  seems  to  imply 
that  he  could  have  settled  this  and  other  difficulties 

340 


PLEASURES   AND   DIPLOMACY   IN   FRANCE 

in  1780  by  the  commercial  treaty  which  he  was 
empowered  to  make  with  England,  and  that  Ver- 
gennes,  in  advising  him  not  to  communicate  with 
England,  had  intended  to  keep  England  and  the 
United  States  embroiled.  Possibly  that  may  have 
been  Vergennes's  intention.  But  as  it  was  after 
wards  found  impossible  to  adjust  these  commercial 
difficulties  until  the  war  of  1 8 1 2,  and  as  Adams  him 
self  did  not  attempt  it,  though  he  might  have  done 
so  in  spite  of  Vergennes's  advice,  and  as  they  were 
finally  settled  only  by  a  war,  it  is  not  probable  that 
Adams  could  have  adjusted  them  in  the  easy,  off 
hand  way  he  imagines.  In  any  event,  it  was  not 
worth  while  for  the  sake  of  these  future  contingen 
cies  to  offend  Vergennes  and  jeopardize  our  alliance 
and  the  loans  of  money  we  were  obtaining  from 
France. 

Franklin's  policy  of  making  absolutely  sure  of  the 
friendship  and  assistance  of  France  seems  to  have 
been  the  sound  one,  and  with  his  wonderful  accom 
plishments  and  adaptability  he  could  be  friendly  and 
agreeable  without  sacrificing  anything.  But  Adams 
went  at  everything  with  a  club,  and  could  understand 
no  other  method. 

I  cannot  find  that  Franklin  was  at  any  time  willing 
to  sacrifice  the  fisheries,  or  the  Mississippi  River  or 
the  western  lands.  In  fact,  he  was  more  firm  on 
the  question  of  the  Mississippi  than  Congress.  In 
its  extremity,  Congress  finally  instructed  Jay  to  yield 
the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi  if  he  could  get 
assistance  from  Spain  in  no  other  way ;  and  the 
Spanish  premier,  having  intercepted  this  instruction 

34* 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

and  read  it,  had  poor  Jay  at  his  mercy.     But  Frank 
lin  was  very  strenuous  on  this  point,  and  wrote  to 

Jay- 

"  Poor  as  we  are,  yet,  as  I  know  we  shall  be  rich,  I  would 
rather  agree  with  them  to  buy  at  a  great  price  the  whole  of  their 
right  on  the  Mississippi,  than  sell  a  drop  of  its  waters.  A  neigh 
bor  might  as  well  ask  me  to  sell  my  street  door." 

Jay  grew  more  and  more  suspicious  of  France,  and 
Adams  reports  him  as  saying,  "  Every  day  produces 
some  fresh  proof  and  example  of  their  vile  schemes." 
One  of  the  British  negotiators  obtained  for  him  a 
letter  which  Marbois,  the  secretary  of  the  French 
legation  in  America,  had  written  home,  urging  Ver- 
gennes  not  to  support  the  commissioners  in  their 
claim  to  the  right  of  fishing  on  the  Newfoundland 
Banks.  This  he  considered  absolute  proof;  but  the 
examination  which  has  since  been  made  of  all  the 
confidential  correspondence  of  that  period  does  not 
show  that  Marbois' s  suggestion  was  ever  acted  upon. 
Individuals  doubtless  cherished  purposes  of  their 
own,  but  the  French  government  in  all  its  actions 
seems  to  have  fully  justified  Franklin's  confidence  in 
it.  Jefferson,  who  afterwards  went  to  France,  de 
clared  that  there  was  no  proof  whatever  of  Franklin's 
subserviency. 

When  Adams  arrived  he  was  delighted  to  find 
himself  in  full  accord  with  Jay.  He  had  been  in 
Holland,  where  he  had  succeeded  in  negotiating  a 
loan  and  a  commercial  treaty,  and  consequently  felt 
that  he  was  somewhat  of  a  success  as  a  diplomatist, 
and  need  not  any  longer  be  so  much  overawed  by 
Franklin.  He  relates  in  his  diary  how  the  French 

342 


PLEASURES  AND   DIPLOMACY  IN  FRANCE 

courtiers  heaped  compliments  on  him.  "Sir,  "they 
would  say,  "you  have  been  the  Washington  of  the 
negotiation."  To  which  he  would  answer  in  his  best 
French,  "  Sir,  you  have  given  me  the  grandest  honor 
and  a  compliment  the  most  sublime."  They  would 
reply,  "  Ah,  sir,  in  truth  you  have  well  deserved  it" 
And  he  concludes  by  saying,  "  A  few  of  these  com 
pliments  would  kill  Franklin,  if  they  should  come  to 
his  ears." 

He  uses  strong  language  about  the  "  base  system" 
pursued  by  Franklin,  and  talks  in  a  lofty  way  of  the 
impossibility  of  a  man  becoming  distinguished  as  a 
diplomatist  who  allows  his  passion  for  women  to  get 
the  better  of  him.  He  and  Jay  conducted  the  rest 
of  the  negotiations  and  completed  the  treaty,  Frank 
lin  merely  assisting ;  and  Adams  gloried  in  breaking 
the  instruction  of  Congress  to  take  the  advice  of 
France.  He  was  still  smarting  under  the  rebuke 
administered  for  his  interference  and  for  the  offence 
he  gave  Vergennes  a  year  or  two  before,  and  after 
declaring  that  Congress  in  this  rebuke  had  prostituted 
its  own  honor  as  well  as  his,  he  breaks  forth  on  the 
subject  of  the  instruction  to  take  the  advice  of 
France  : 

"Congress  surrendered  their  own  sovereignty  into  the  hands  of  a 
French  minister.  Blush  !  blush  !  ye  guilty  records  !  blush  and 
perish  !  It  is  glory  to  have  broken  such  infamous  orders.  Infa 
mous,  I  say,  for  so  they  will  be  to  all  posterity.  How  can  such  a 
stain  be  washed  out?  Can  we  cast  a  veil  over  it  and  forget  it?" 
(Adams's  Works,  vol.  iii.  p.  359.) 

Franklin  finally  agreed  that  they  should  go  on 
with  the  negotiations  and  make  the  treaty  without 

343 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

consulting  the  French  government.  Vergennes  was 
offended,  but  Franklin  managed  to  smooth  the  matter 
over  and  pacify  him.  Congress  censured  the  com 
missioners  for  violating  the  instruction,  and  they  all 
made  the  best  excuses  they  could.  Franklin's  was  a 
very  clever  one. 

' '  We  did  what  appeared  to  all  of  us  best  at  the  time,  and  if  we 
have  done  wrong,  the  Congress  will  do  right,  after  hearing  us,  to 
censure  us.  Their  nomination  of  five  persons  to  the  service  seems 
to  mark,  that  they  had  some  dependence  on  our  joint  judgment, 
since  one  alone  could  have  made  a  treaty  by  direction  of  the  French 
ministry  as  well  as  twenty. ' ' 

It  is  probable  that  Franklin  agreed  to  ignore  the 
instruction,  and  assented  to  all  the  other  acts  of  the 
commissioners,  because  he  thought  it  best  to  have 
harmony.  Such  an  opportunity  for  a  terrible  quarrel 
could  not  have  been  resisted  by  some  men,  for 
Adams  bluntly  told  him  that  he  disapproved  of  all 
his  previous  conduct  in  the  matter  of  the  treaty. 
As  Adams  was  the  head  of  the  commission,  it  would 
seem  that  Franklin,  finding  himself  outvoted,  took 
the  proper  course  of  not  blocking  a  momentous  ne 
gotiation  by  his  personal  feelings  or  opinions,  so  long 
as  substantial  results  were  being  secured.  In  this 
respect  he  did  exactly  the  reverse  of  what  Adams 
had  prophesied.  In  the  beginning  of  the  negotia 
tions  Adams  entered  in  his  diary,  "  Franklin's  cun 
ning  will  be  to  divide  us  ;  to  this  end  he  will  provoke, 
he  will  insinuate,  he  will  intrigue,  he  will  manoeuvre." 
Instead  of  that  he  encouraged  their  union. 

Adams's  writings  are  full  of  extraordinary  sus 
picions  of  this  sort  which  turned  out  to  be  totally 

344 


PLEASURES   AND   DIPLOMACY  IN   FRANCE 

unfounded  ;  but  so  fond  was  he  of  them  that,  after 
having  been  obliged  to  confess  that  Franklin  had 
acted  in  entire  harmony  with  the  commissioners,  and 
after  all  had  ended  well  and  Franklin  had  obtained 
another  loan  of  six  millions  from  Vergennes,  he  can 
not  resist  saying,  "  I  suspect,  however,  and  have 
reason,  but  will  say  nothing."  Those  familiar  with 
him  know  that  this  means  that  he  had  no  reason  or 
evidence  whatever,  but  was  simply  determined  to 
gratify  his  peculiar  passion. 

Franklin  wrote  a  long  letter  to  Congress  about  the 
treaty,  and  after  saying  that  he  entirely  discredited 
the  suspicions  of  the  treachery  of  the  French  court, 
he  squares  accounts  with  Adams  : 


' '  I  ought  not,  however,  to  conceal  from  you,  that  one  of  my  col 
leagues  is  of  a  very  different  opinion  from  me  in  these  matters.  He 
thinks  the  French  minister  one  of  the  greatest  enemies  of  our  coun 
try,  that  he  would  have  straitened  our  boundaries,  to  prevent  the 
growth  of  our  people  ;  contracted  our  fishery,  to  obstruct  the  in 
crease  of  our  seamen  ;  and  retained  the  royalists  among  us,  to  keep 
us  divided  ;  that  he  privately  opposes  all  our  negotiations  with  for 
eign  courts,  and  afforded  us,  during  the  war,  the  assistance  we  re 
ceived,  only  to  keep  it  alive,  that  we  might  be  so  much  the  more 
weakened  by  it ;  that  to  think  of  gratitude  to  France  is  the  greatest 
of  follies,  and  that  to  be  influenced  by  it  would  ruin  us.  He  makes  no 
secret  of  his  having  these  opinions,  expresses  them  publicly,  some 
times  in  presence  of  the  English  ministers,  and  speaks  of  hundreds 
of  instances  which  he  could  produce  in  proof  of  them.  None, 
however,  have  yet  appeared  to  me,  unless  the  conversations  and 
letter  above-mentioned  are  reckoned  such. 

* '  If  I  were  not  convinced  of  the  real  inability  of  this  court  to  fur 
nish  the  further  supplies  we  asked,  I  should  suspect  these  discourses 
of  a  person  in  his  station  might  have  influenced  the  refusal ;  but  I 
think  they  have  gone  no  further  than  to  occasion  a  suspicion,  that  we 
have  a  considerable  party  of  Antigallicians  in  America,  who  are  not 
Tories,  and  consequently  to  produce  some  doubts  of  the  continuance 

345 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

of  our  friendship.  As  such  doubts  may  hereafter  have  a  bad  effect, 
I  think  we  cannot  take  too  much  care  to  remove  them  ;  and  it  is 
therefore  I  write  this,  to  put  you  on  your  guard,  (believing  it  my 
duty,  though  I  know  that  I  hazard  by  it  a  mortal  enmity),  and  to 
caution  you  respecting  the  insinuations  of  this  gentleman  againsi 
this  court,  and  the  instances  he  supposes  of  their  ill  will  to  us,  which 
I  take  to  be  as  imaginary  as  I  know  his  fancies  to  be,  that  Count  de 
Vergennes  and  myself  are  continually  plotting  against  him,  and  em 
ploying  the  news-writers  of  Europe  to  depreciate  his  character,  &c. 
But  as  Shakespeare  says,  *  Trifles  light  as  air, '  &c.  I  am  persuaded, 
however,  that  he  means  well  for  his  country,  is  always  an  honest 
man,  often  a  wise  one,  but  sometimes,  and  in  some  things,  absolutely 
out  of  his  senses. ' ' 


Adams  never  forgave  this  slap,  and  he  and  his 
descendants  have  kept  up  the  "mortal  enmity" 
which  Franklin  knew  he  was  hazarding. 

Before  he  left  France  Franklin  took  part  in  making 
a  treaty  with  Prussia,  and  secured  the  insertion  of  an 
article  which  embodied  his  favorite  idea  that  in  case 
of  war  there  should  be  no  privateering,  the  merchant 
vessels  of  either  party  should  pass  unmolested,  and 
unarmed  farmers,  fishermen,  and  artisans  should  re 
main  undisturbed  in  their  employments.  But  as  a 
war  usually  breaks  all  treaties  between  the  contending 
nations,  this  one  might  have  been  difficult  to  enforce. 

At  last,  in  July,  1785,  came  the  end  of  his  long 
and  delightful  residence  in  a  country  which  he  seems 
to  have  loved  as  much  as  if  it  had  been  his  own.  No 
American,  and  certainly  no  Englishman,  has  ever 
spoken  so  well  of  the  French.  He  never  could 
forget,  he  said,  the  nine  years'  happiness  that  he  had 
enjoyed  there  "  in  the  sweet  society  of  a  people  whose 
conversation  is  instructive,  whose  manners  are  highly 
pleasing,  and  who,  above  all  the  nations  of  the  world, 

346 


PORTRAIT   OF    LOUIS    XVI.    GIVEN    BY    HIM 
TO    FRANKLIN 


PLEASURES  AND   DIPLOMACY   IN   FRANCE 

have,  in  the  greatest  perfection,  the  art  of  making 
themselves  beloved  by  strangers." 

The  king  gave  him  his  picture  set  in  two  circles 
of  four  hundred  and  eight  diamonds,*  and  furnished 
the  litter,  swung  between  two  mules,  to  carry  him  to 
the  coast.  If  the  king  himself  had  been  in  the  litter 
he  could  not  have  received  more  attention  and  wor 
ship  from  noblemen,  ecclesiastics,  governors,  soldiers, 
and  important  public  bodies  on  the  journey  to  the 
sea.  It  was  a  triumphal  march  for  the  American 
philosopher,  now  so  old  and  so  afflicted  with  the 
gout  and  the  stone  that  he  could  barely  endure  the 
easy  motion  of  the  royal  mules. 

His  two  grandsons  accompanied  him.  De  Chau- 
mont  and  his  daughter  insisted  on  going  as  far  as 
Nanterre,  and  his  old  friend  Le  Veillard  went  with 
him  all  the  way  to  England.  He  kept  a  diary  of 
the  journey,  full  of  most  interesting  details  of  the 
people  who  met  him  on  the  road,  how  the  Cardinal 
de  la  Rochefoucauld  sent  messengers  to  stop  him 
and  order  him  with  mock  violence  to  spend  the 
night  at  his  castle.  It  is  merely  the  jotting  down 
of  odd  sentences  in  a  diary,  but  the  magic  of  Frank 
lin's  genius  has  given  to  the  smallest  incidents  an 
immortal  fascination. 

*  By  his  will  Franklin  left  this  picture  to  his  daughter,  Sarah 
Bache,  and  it  is  still  in  the  possession  of  her  descendants.  He  re 
quested  her  not  to  use  the  outer  circle  of  diamonds  as  ornaments 
and  introduce  the  useless  fashion  of  wearing  jewels  in  America,  but 
he  implied  that  she  could  sell  them.  She  sold  them,  and  with  the 
proceeds  she  and  her  husband  made  the  tour  of  Europe.  The  inner 
circle  he  directed  should  be  preserved  with  the  picture,  but  they 
were  removed. 

347 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

He  would  have  liked  to  spend  some  time  in  Eng 
land  among  his  old  friends,  but  the  war  feeling  was 
still  too  violent.  He,  however,  crossed  to  England 
and  stayed  four  days  at  Southampton  waiting  for 
Captain  Truxton's  ship,  which  was  to  call  for  him. 
English  friends  flocked  down  to  see  him  and  to 
give  him  little  mementos,  and  the  British  govern 
ment  gave  orders  that  his  baggage  should  not  be 
examined.  The  Bishop  of  St.  Asaph,  who  lived 
near  by,  hastened  to  Southampton  with  his  wife 
and  one  of  his  daughters  and  spent  several  days 
in  saying  farewell,  On  the  evening  of  the  last  day 
they  accompanied  him  on  board  the  ship,  dined 
there,  and  intended  to  stay  all  night ;  but,  to  save 
him  the  pain  of  parting,  they  went  ashore  after  he 
had  gone  to  bed.  "When  I  waked  in  the  morn 
ing,"  he  says,  "  found  the  company  gone  and  the 
ship  under  sail." 

The  bishop's  daughter,  Catherine,  wrote  him  one 
of  her  charming  letters  which,  as  it  relates  to  him,  is 
as  immortal  as  any  of  his  own  writings.  Every  day 
at  dinner,  she  tells  him,  they  drank  to  his  prosperous 
voyage.  She  is  troubled  because  she  forgot  to  give 
him  a  pin-cushion.  He  seemed  to  have  everything 
else  he  needed,  and  that  might  have  been  useful. 
"We  are  forever  talking  of  our  good  friend  ;  some 
thing  is  perpetually  occurring  to  remind  us  of  the 
time  spent  with  you."  They  had  besought  him  to  fin 
ish  during  the  voyage  his  Autobiography,  which  had 
been  begun  at  their  house.  "  We  never  walk  in  the 
garden  without  seeing  Dr.  Franklin's  room,  and 
thinking  of  the  work  that  was  begun  in  it." 

348 


XI 

THE   CONSTITUTION-MAKER 

ALMOST  immediately  on  Franklin's  return  to  Phil 
adelphia  he  was  made  President  of  the  Supreme 
Executive  Council  of  Pennsylvania,  under  the  extraor 
dinary  constitution  he  had  helped  to  make  before  he 
went  to  France  in  1776.  This  office  was  somewhat 
like  that  of  the  modern  governor.  He  held  it  for 
three  years,  by  annual  re-elections,  but  without  being 
involved  in  any  notable  questions  or  controversies. 

He  was  at  this  period  of  his  life  still  genial  and 
mellow,  in  spite  of  disease,  and  full  of  anecdotes, 
learning,  and  curious  experiences.  His  voice  is  de 
scribed  as  low  and  his  countenance  open,  frank, 
and  pleasing. 

He  enjoyed  what  to  him  was  one  of  the  greatest 
pleasures  of  life,  children  and  grandchildren.  He 
had  six  grandchildren,  and  no  doubt  often  wished 
that  he  had  a  hundred.  He  had  no  patience  with 
celibacy,  and  was  constantly  urging  marriage  on  his 
friends.  To  John  Sargent  he  wrote, — 

"  The  account  you  give  me  of  your  family  is  pleasing,  except  that 
your  eldest  son  continues  so  long  unmarried.  I  hope  he  does  not 
intend  to  live  and  die  in  celibacy.  The  wheel  of  life  that  has  rolled 
down  to  him  from  Adam  without  interruption  should  not  stop  with 
him.  I  would  not  have  one  dead  unbearing  branch  in  the  genea 
logical  tree  of  the  Sargents.  The  married  state  is,  after  all  our 
iokes,  the  happiest." 

349 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

Sir  Samuel  Romilly,  who  visited  him  in  Paris 
shortly  before  his  return  to  America,  says  in  his 
journal, — 

"  Of  all  the  celebrated  persons  whom  in  my  life  I  have  chanced  to 
see,  Dr.  Franklin,  both  from  his  appearance  and  his  conversation, 
seemed  to  me  the  most  remarkable.  His  venerable  patriarchal  ap 
pearance,  the  simplicity  of  his  manner  and  language,  and  the  nov 
elty  of  his  observations,  at  least  the  novelty  of  them  at  that  time  to 
me,  impressed  me  with  an  opinion  of  him  as  one  of  the  most  ex 
traordinary  men  that  ever  existed."  (Life  of  Romilly.  By  his 
Sons.  Vol.  i.  p.  50.) 

He  lived  in  a  large  house  in  Philadelphia,  situated 
on  a  court  long  afterwards  called  by  his  name,  a 
little  back  from  the  south  side  of  Market  Street,  be 
tween  Third  and  Fourth  Streets.  There  was  a  small 
garden  attached  to  it,  and  also  a  grass-plot  on  which 
was  a  large  mulberry-tree,  under  which  he  often  sat 
and  received  visitors  on  summer  afternoons.  He 
built  a  large  addition  to  the  house,  comprising  a 
library,  a  room  for  the  meetings  of  the  American 
Philosophical  Society,  with  some  bedrooms  in  the 
third  story.  Here  he  passed  the  closing  years  of 
his  life  with  his  daughter  and  six  grandchildren, 
reading,  writing,  receiving  visits  from  distinguished 
men,  and  playing  cards  in  the  winter  evenings. 

"I  have  indeed  now  and  then,"  he  writes  to  Mrs.  Hewson,  "a 
little  compunction  in  reflecting  that  I  spend  time  so  idly ;  but  an 
other  reflection  comes  to  relieve  me,  whispering,  '  You  know  that  the 
soul  is  immortal ;  "why  then  should  you  be  such  a  niggard  of  a  little 
time,  when  you  have  a  whole  eternity  before  you  ?'  So,  being  easily 
convinced,  and,  like  other  reasonable  creatures,  satisfied  with  a  small 
reason,  when  it  is  in  favor  of  doing  what  I  have  a  mind  to,  I  shuffle 
the  cards  again,  and  begin  another  game." 

350 


I     / 


:  _!___!_ 


FRANKLIN    PORTRAIT    IN    WEST    COLLECTION 


THE   CONSTITUTION-MAKER 

He  was  soon,  however,  given  very  important  em 
ployment  in  spite  of  his  age.  He  had  made  him 
self  famous  in  many  varied  spheres,  from  almanacs 
and  stove-making  to  treaties  of  alliance.  Nothing 
seemed  to  be  too  small  or  too  great  for  him.  He 
invented  an  apparatus  for  taking  books  from  high 
shelves.  He  suggested  that  sailors  could  mitigate 
thirst  by  sitting  in  the  salt  water  or  soaking  their 
clothes  in  it  The  pores  of  the  skin,  he  said,  while 
large  enough  to  admit  the  water,  are  too  small  to 
allow  the  salt  to  penetrate  ;  and  the  experiment  was 
successfully  tried  by  shipwrecked  crews.  He  sug 
gested  that  bread  and  flour  could  be  preserved  for 
years  in  air-tight  bottles,  and  Captain  Cook  tried  it 
with  good  results  in  his  famous  voyage.  It  is  cer 
tainly  strange  that  the  man  who  was  so  passionately 
interested  in  such  subjects  should  enter  the  great 
domain  of  constitution-making  and,  in  spite  of  many 
blunders,  excel  those  who  had  made  it  their  special 
study. 

He  had  no  knowledge  of  technical  law,  either  in 
practice  or  as  a  science.  He  was  once  elected  a 
justice  of  the  peace  in  Philadelphia,  but  soon  re 
signed,  because,  as  he  said,  he  knew  nothing  of  the 
rules  of  English  common  law.  It  was  perhaps  the 
only  important  domain  of  human  knowledge  in  which 
he  was  not  interested. 

As  a  public  man  of  long  experience  he  had  con 
siderable  knowledge  of  general  laws  and  their  prac 
tical  effect.  He  was  a  law-maker  rather  than  a  law- 
interpreter.  He  understood  colonial  rights,  and 
knew  every  phase  of  the  controversy  with  Great 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

Britain,  and  he  had  fixed  opinions  as  to  constitu 
tional  forms  and  principles.  Some  of  his  ideas  on 
constitution-making  were  unsound  ;  but  it  is  astonish 
ing  what  an  important  part  he  played  during  his 
long  life  in  American  constitutional  development. 

I  have  shown  in  another  volume,  called  "The 
Evolution  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States," 
how  the  principles  and  forms  of  that  instrument  were 
developed  out  of  two  hundred  years'  experience  with 
more  than  forty  colonial  charters  and  Revolutionary 
constitutions  and  more  than  twenty  plans  of  union. 
The  plans  of  union  were  devised  from  time  to  time 
with  the  purpose  of  uniting  the  colonies  under  one 
general  government.  None  of  them  was  put  into 
actual  practice  until  the  "Articles  of  Confederation" 
were  adopted  during  the  Revolution.  But  although 
unsuccessful  in  the  sense  that  no  union  was  formed 
under  any  of  them,  they  contributed  ideas  and  prin 
ciples  which  finally  produced  the  federalism  of  the 
national  Constitution  under  which  we  now  live. 

Two  of  these  plans  of  union  were  prepared  by 
Franklin.  No  other  American  prepared  more  than 
one,  and  Franklin's  two  were  the  most  important  of 
all.  Not  only  was  he  the  originator  of  the  two 
most  important  plans,  but  he  lived  long  enough  to 
take  part  in  framing  the  final  result  of  all  the  plans, 
the  national  Constitution,  and  he  was  the  author  of 
one  of  the  most  valuable  provisions  in  it. 

The  first  plan  of  union  which  he  drafted  was  the 
one  adopted  by  the  Albany  Conference  of  1754, 
that  had  been  called  to  make  a  general  treaty  with 
the  Indians  which  would  obviate  the  confusion  of 

352 


THE   CONSTITUTION-MAKER 

separate  treaties  made  by  the  different  colonies. 
Such  a  general  treaty,  by  controlling  the  Indians, 
would,  it  was  hoped,  assist  in  resisting  the  designs 
of  the  French  in  Canada.  It  was  obvious,  also, 
that  if  the  colonies  were  united  under  a  general 
government  they  would  be  better  able  to  withstand 
the  French.  Franklin  had  advocated  this  idea  of 
union  in  his  Gazette,  and  had  published  a  wood-cut 
representing  a  wriggling  snake  separated  into  pieces, 
each  of  which  had  on  it  the  initial  letter  of  one  of 
the  colonies,  and  underneath  was  written,  "  Join  or 
die." 

He  was  sent  to  the  conference  as  one  of  the  dele 
gates  from  Pennsylvania,  and  his  plan  of  union, 
which  was  adopted,  was  a  distinct  improvement  on 
all  others  that  had  preceded  it,  and  contained  the 
germs  of  principles  which  are  now  a  fundamental 
part  of  our  political  system.  In  1775,  while  a  mem 
ber  of  the  Continental  Congress,  he  drafted  another 
plan,  which,  though  not  adopted,  added  new  sug 
gestions  and  developments.  But  as  both  of  these 
plans  are  fully  discussed  in  "  The  Evolution  of  the 
Constitution,"  *  it  is  unnecessary  to  say  more  about 
them  here. 

He  was  a  member  of  the  convention  which  in 
1776  framed  a  new  constitution  for  Pennsylvania, 
and  in  this  instrument  he  secured  the  adoption  of 
two  of  his  favorite  ideas.  He  believed  that  a  Legis 
lature  should  consist  of  only  one  House,  and  that 
the  executive  authority,  instead  of  being  vested  in  a 


*  Pp.  218,  231-236. 
23  353 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

single  person,  should  be  exercised  by  a  committee. 
The  executive  department  of  Pennsylvania  became, 
therefore,  a  Supreme  Executive  Council  of  twelve 
members  elected  by  the  different  counties.  In  order 
to  make  up  for  the  lack  of  a  double  House,  there 
was  a  sort  of  makeshift  provision  providing  that 
every  bill  must  pass  two  sessions  of  the  Assembly 
before  it  became  a  law.  There  was  also  a  curious 
body  called  the  Council  of  Censors,  two  from  each 
city  and  county,  who  were  to  see  that  the  constitu 
tion  was  not  violated  and  that  all  departments  of 
government  did  their  duty.  It  was  a  crude  and  awk 
ward  attempt  to  prevent  unconstitutional  legislation, 
and  proved  an  utter  failure.  The  whole  constitution 
was  a  most  bungling  contrivance  which  wrought  great 
harm  to  the  State  and  was  replaced  by  a  more  suit 
able  one  in  1 790. 

But  Franklin  heartily  approved  of  it,  and  in  1 790 
protested  most  earnestly  against  a  change.  He 
argued  at  length  against  a  single  executive  and  in 
favor  of  a  single  house  Legislature  in  the  teeth  of 
innumerable  facts  proving  the  utter  impracticability 
of  both.  No  other  important  public  men  of  the  time 
believed  in  them,  and  they  had  been  rejected  in  the 
national  Constitution.  He  was,  however,  as  humor 
ous  and  clever  in  this  argument  as  if  he  had  been  in 
the  right.  A  double-branch  Legislature  would,  he 
said,  be  too  weak  in  each  branch  to  support  a  good 
measure  or  obstruct  a  bad  one. 

"  Has  not  the  famous  political  fable  of  the  snake  with  two  heads 
and  one  body  some  useful  instruction  contained  in  it?  She  was 
going  to  a  brook  to  drink,  and  in  her  way  was  to  pass  through  a 

354 


THE   CONSTITUTION  MAKER 

hedge,  a  twig  of  which  opposed  her  direct  course  ;  one  head  chose 
to  go  on  the  right  side  of  the  twig,  the  other  on  the  left ;  so  that 
time  was  spent  in  the  contest,  and,  before  the  decision  was  com 
pleted,  the  poor  snake  died  with  thirst."  (Bigelow's  Works  of 
Franklin,  vol.  x.  p.  1 86.) 

After  Franklin  had  taken  part  in  framing  the 
Pennsylvania  constitution  of  1776  and  had  gone  to 
Paris  as  ambassador  to  France,  he  had  all  the  new 
Revolutionary  constitutions  of  the  American  States 
translated  into  French  and  widely  circulated.  Much 
importance  has  been  attached  to  this  translation  by 
some  writers,  Thomas  Paine  saying  that  these  trans 
lated  constitutions  "were  to  liberty  what  grammar 
is  to  language  :  they  define  its  parts  of  speech  and 
practically  construct  them  into  syntax  ;"  and  both 
he  and  some  of  Franklin's  biographers  ascribe  to 
them  a  vast  influence  in  shaping  the  course  of  the 
French  Revolution.  Franklin  wrote  to  the  Rev.  Dr, 
Cooper,  of  Boston,  that  the  French  people  read  the 
translations  with  rapture,  and  added, — 

' '  There  are  such  numbers  everywhere  who  talk  of  removing  to 
America  with  their  families  and  fortunes  as  soon  as  peace  and  our 
independence  shall  be  established  that  it  is  generally  believed  we 
shall  have  a  prodigious  addition  of  strength,  wealth  and  arts  from  the 
emigration  of  Europe ;  and  it  is  thought  that  to  lessen  or  prevent 
such  emigration  the  tyrannies  established  there  must  relax  and  allow 
more  liberty  to  their  people.  Hence  it  is  a  common  observation 
here  that  our  cause  is  the  cause  of  all  mankind  and  that  we  are 
fighting  for  their  liberty  in  defending  our  own. ' ' 

As  there  was  none  of  the  vast  emigration  out  of 
France  which  he  speaks  of,  and  the  great  emigration 
from  Europe  did  not  begin  until  after  the  year  1820, 
it  may  very  well  be  that  both  he  and  his  biographers 

355 


THE   TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

have  exaggerated  the  effect  of  the  translations.  But 
there  seems  to  be  no  doubt  that  the  translations 
must,  on  general  principles,  have  had  a  stimulating 
effect  on  liberal  ideas,  although  we  may  not  be  able 
to  measure  accurately  the  full  force  of  their  influence. 
They  also  were  valuable  in  arousing  the  enthusiasm 
of  the  French  forces,  and  making  more  sure  of  their 
assistance  and  alliance. 

His  last  work  in  constitution-making  was  in  1787, 
when  the  convention  met  at  Philadelphia  to  frame 
the  national  document  which  was  to  take  the  place 
of  the  old  Articles  of  Confederation,  and  this  was 
also  the  last  important  work  of  his  life.  He  was  then 
eighty-one  years  old,  and  suffering  so  much  from  the 
gout  and  stone  that  he  could  not  remain  standing 
for  any  length  of  time.  His  important  speeches  he 
usually  wrote  out  and  had  his  colleague,  Mr.  Wilson, 
read  them  to  the  convention.  This  was  in  some  re 
spects  an  advantage,  for  these  speeches  have  been 
preserved  entire  in  Madison's  notes  of  the  debates, 
while  what  was  said  by  the  other  members  was  writ 
ten  by  Madison  from  memory  or  much  abbreviated. 
It  was  Franklin's  characteristic  good  luck  attending 
him  to  the  last. 

Considering  his  age  and  infirmity,  one  would  nat 
urally  not  expect  much  from  him,  and,  as  we  go  over 
the  debates,  some  propositions  which  he  advocated 
and  his  treatment  by  the  other  members  incline  us  at 
first  to  the  opinion  that  he  had  passed  his  days  of 
great  usefulness,  and  that  he  was  in  the  position  of 
an  old  man  whose  whims  are  treated  with  kindness. 

One  of  the  principles  which  he  advocated  most 
356 


THE   CONSTITUTION-MAKER 

earnestly  was  that  the  President,  or  whatever  the 
head  of  the  government  should  be  called,  should 
receive  no  salary.  He  moved  to  amend  the  part 
relating  to  the  salary  by  substituting  for  it  "  whose 
necessary  expenses  shall  be  defrayed,  but  who  shall 
receive  no  salary,  stipend,  fee,  or  reward  whatsoever 
for  their  services." 

He  wrote  an  interesting  speech  in  support  of  his 
amendment.  But  it  is  easy  to  see  that  his  suggestion 
is  not  a  wise  one.  No  one  familiar  with  modern 
politics  would  approve  of  it,  and  scarcely  any  one  in 
the  convention  looked  upon  it  with  favor.  Madison 
records  that  Hamilton  seconded  the  motion  merely  to 
bring  it  before  the  House  and  out  of  regard  for  Dr. 
Franklin.  It  was  indefinitely  postponed  without  de 
bate,  and  Madison  adds  that  "it  was  treated  with 
great  respect,  but  rather  for  the  author  of  it  than  from 
any  apparent  conviction  of  its  expediency  or  prac 
ticability." 

He  also  clung  steadfastly  to  his  old  notions  that 
the  executive  authority  should  be  vested  in  a  number 
of  persons, — a  sort  of  council,  like  the  absurd  ar 
rangement  in  Pennsylvania, — and  that  the  Legislature 
should  consist  of  only  one  House.  These  two  propo 
sitions  he  advocated  to  the  end  of  the  session.  We 
find,  moreover,  that  he  seconded  the  motion  giving 
the  President  authority  to  suspend  the  laws  for  a 
limited  time,  certainly  a  most  dangerous  power  to 
give,  and  very  inconsistent  with  Franklin's  other 
opinions  on  the  subject  of  liberty. 

On  the  other  hand,  however,  we  find  him  opposing 
earnestly  any  restrictions  on  the  right  to  vote.  He 

357 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

was  always  urging  the  members  to  a  spirit  of  con 
ciliation  and  a  compromise  of  their  violent  opinions 
on  the  ground  that  it  was  only  by  this  means  that  a 
national  government  could  be  created.  It  was  for 
this  purpose  that  he  proposed  the  daily  reading  of 
prayers  by  some  minister  of  the  Gospel,  which  was 
rejected  by  the  convention,  because,  as  they  had  not 
begun  in  this  way,  their  taking  it  up  in  the  midst  of 
their  proceedings  would  cause  the  outside  world  to 
think  that  they  were  in  great  difficulties. 

He  was  strongly  in  favor  of  a  clause  allowing  the 
President  to  be  impeached  for  misdemeanors,  which 
would,  he  said,  be  much  better  than  the  ordinary 
old-fashioned  way  of  assassination  ;  and  he  was  op 
posed  to  allowing  the  President  an  absolute  veto  on 
legislation.  All  matters  relating  to  money  should, 
he  thought,  be  made  public  ;  there  should  be  no 
limitation  of  the  power  of  Congress  to  increase  the 
compensation  of  the  judges,  and  very  positive  proof 
should  be  required  in  cases  of  treason.  In  these 
matters  he  was  in  full  accord  with  the  majority  of  the 
convention. 

But  his  great  work  was  done  in  settling  the  ques 
tion  of  the  amount  of  representation  to  be  given  to 
the  smaller  States,  and  was  accomplished  in  a  cu 
rious  way.  John  Dickinson,  of  Delaware,  was  the 
champion  of  the  interests  of  the  small  common 
wealths,  which  naturally  feared  that  if  representation 
in  both  Houses  of  Congress  was  to  be  in  proportion 
to  population,  their  interests  would  be  made  subor 
dinate  to  those  of  the  States  which  outnumbered 
them  in  inhabitants.  This  was  one  of  the  most 

358 


THE   CONSTITUTION-MAKER 

serious  difficulties  the  convention  had  to  face,  and 
the  strenuousness  with  which  the  small  States  main 
tained  their  rights  came  near  breaking  up  the  con 
vention. 

Franklin  was  in  favor  of  only  one  House  of  Con 
gress,  with  the  representation  in  it  proportioned  to 
population,  and  he  made  a  most  ingenious  and  falla 
cious  argument  to  show  that  there  was  more  danger 
of  the  smaller  States  absorbing  the  larger  than  of 
the  larger  swallowing  the  smaller.  But,  in  the  hope 
of  conciliating  Dickinson  and  his  followers,  he  sug 
gested  several  compromises,  the  first  one  of  which 
was  very  cumbersome  and  impracticable  and  need 
not  be  mentioned  here.  It  seemed  to  take  for 
granted  that  there  was  to  be  only  one  House  of 
Congress. 

Afterwards,  when  it  was  definitely  decided  to  have 
two  Houses,  the  question  as  to  the  position  of  the 
smaller  States  was  again  raised  in  deciding  how  the 
Senate  was  to  be  composed.  Some  were  for  making 
its  representation  proportional  to  population,  like 
that  of  the  lower  House,  and  this  the  small  States 
resisted.  Franklin  said  that  the  trouble  seemed  to 
be  that  with  proportional  representation  in  the  Sen 
ate  the  small  States  thought  their  liberties  in  danger, 
and  if  each  State  had  an  equal  vote  in  the  Senate 
the  large  States  thought  their  money  was  in  danger. 
He  would,  therefore,  try  to  unite  the  two  factions. 
Let  each  State  have  an  equal  number  of  delegates 
in  the  Senate,  but  when  any  question  of  appropri 
ating  money  arose,  let  these  delegates  "  have  suffrage 
in  proportion  to  the  sums  which  their  respective 

359 


THE  TRUE   BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 

States  do  actually  contribute  to  the  treasury."  This 
was  not  very  practical,  but  it  proved  to  be  a  step 
which  led  him  in  the  right  direction. 

A  few  days  afterwards,  in  a  committee  appointed 
to  consider  the  question,  he  altered  his  suggestion  so 
that  in  the  lower  House  the  representation  should 
be  in  proportion  to  population,  but  in  the  Senate 
each  State  should  have  an  equal  vote,  and  that 
money  bills  should  originate  only  in  the  lower 
House.  The  committee  reported  in  favor  of  his 
plan,  and  it  was  substantially  adopted  in  the  Consti 
tution.  The  lower  House  was  given  proportional 
representatives,  and  the  Senate  was  composed  of 
two  Senators  from  each  State,  which  gave  ab 
solute  equality  of  representation  in  that  body  to 
all  the  States.  Money  bills  were  allowed  to  origi 
nate  only  in  the  lower  House,  but  the  Senate  could 
propose  or  concur  with  amendments  as  on  other 
bills. 

Thus  the  great  question  was  settled  by  one  of 
those  strokes  of  Franklin's  sublime  luck  or  genius. 
He  disapproved  of  the  whole  idea  of  a  double- 
headed  Congress,  and  thought  the  fears  of  the  small 
States  ridiculous  ;  but,  for  the  sake  of  conciliation 
and  compromise  with  John  Dickinson  and  his  earnest 
followers,  his  masterful  intellect  worked  out  an  ar 
rangement  which  satisfied  everybody  and  is  one  of 
the  most  important  fundamental  principles  of  our 
Constitution.  Without  it  there  would  be  no  federal 
union.  We  would  be  a  mere  collection  of  warring, 
revolutionary  communities  like  those  of  South 
America.  It  has  never  been  changed  and  in  all 

360 


FRANKLIN'S  GRAVE  IN   CHRIST  CHURCH   GRAVEYARD,  PHILADELPHIA 


THE   CONSTITUTION-MAKER 

human  probability  never  will  be  so  long  as  we  retain 
even  the  semblance  of  a  republic. 

This  was  Franklin's  greatest  and  most  permanent 
service  to  his  country,  more  valuable  than  his  work 
in  England  or  France,  and  a  fitting  close  to  his  long 
life.  The  most  active  period  of  his  life,  as  he  has 
told  us,  was  between  his  seventieth  and  eighty-second 
years.  How  much  can  be  done  in  eighty  vigorous 
years,  and  what  labors  had  he  performed  and  what 
pleasures  and  vast  experiences  enjoyed  in  that  time  ! 
Few  men  do  their  best  work  at  such  a  great  age. 
Moses,  however,  we  are  told,  was  eighty  years  old 
before  he  began  his  life's  greatest  work  of  leading 
the  children  of  Israel  out  of  Egypt.  But  it  would 
be  difficult  to  find  any  other  instances  in  history  ex 
cept  Franklin. 

After  the  Constitution  as  prepared  by  the  conven 
tion  had  been  engrossed  and  read,  it  became  a  ques 
tion  whether  all  the  members  of  the  convention 
could  be  persuaded  to  sign  it,  and  Franklin  handed 
one  of  his  happy  speeches  to  Mr.  Wilson  to  be  read. 
He  admitted  that  the  Constitution  did  not  satisfy 
him  ;  it  was  not  as  he  would  have  had  it  prepared  ; 
but  still  he  would  sign  it.  With  all  its  faults  it  was 
better  than  none.  A  new  convention  would  not 
make  a  better  one,  for  it  would  merely  bring  to 
gether  a  new  set  of  prejudices  and  passions.  He 
was  old  enough,  he  said,  to  doubt  somewhat  the 
infallibility  of  his  own  judgment.  He  was  willing 
to  believe  that  others  might  be  right  as  well  as  he ; 
and  he  amused  the  members  with  his  humor  and 
the  witty  story  of  the  French  lady  who,  in  a  dispute 

361 


THE   TRUE  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

with  her  sister,  said,  "  I  don't  know  how  it  happens, 
sister,  but  I  meet  with  nobody  but  myself  that  is 
always  in  the  right." 

"  It  therefore  astonishes  me,  sir,  to  find  this  system  approaching 
so  near  to  perfection  as  it  does ;  and  I  think  it  will  astonish  our 
enemies,  who  are  waiting  with  confidence  to  hear  that  our  councils 
are  confounded,  like  those  of  the  builders  of  Babel,  and  that  our 
States  are  on  the  point  of  separation,  only  to  meet  hereafter  for  the 
purpose  of  cutting  one  another's  throats.  .  .  . 

"On  the  whole,  sir,  I  cannot  help  expressing  a  wish,  that  every 
member  of  the  Convention  who  may  still  have  objections  to  it, 
would  with  me  on  this  occasion  doubt  a  little  of  his  own  infalli 
bility,  and,  to  make  manifest  our  unanimity ',  put  his  name  to  this 
instrument. ' ' 

At  the  close  of  the  reading  of  his  speech  Franklin 
moved  that  the  Constitution  be  signed,  and  offered 
as  a  convenient  form, — 

"  Done  in  Convention  by  the  unanimous  consent  of  the  States 
present  the  ryth  day  of  September,  etc.  In  witness  whereof  we 
have  hereunto  subscribed  our  names." 

Madison  explains  that  this  form,  with  the  words 
''consent  of  the  States,"  had  been  drawn  up  by 
Gouverneur  Morris  to  gain  the  doubtful  States' 
rights  party.  It  was  given  to  Franklin,  he  says, 
"  that  it  might  have  the  better  chance  of  success." 

"Whilst  the  last  members  were  signing,"  says  Madison,  "Dr. 
Franklin,  looking  towards  the  president's  chair,  at  the  back  of'which 
a  rising  sun  happened  to  be  painted,  observed  to  a  few  members 
near  him  that  painters  had  found  it  difficult  to  distinguish  in  their  art 
a  rising  from  a  setting  sun.  '  I  have,'  said  he,  '  often  and  often  in 
the  course  of  the  session  and  the  vicissitudes  of  my  hopes  and  fears 
as  to  its  issue,  looked  at  that  behind  the  president,  without  being 
able  to  tell  whether  it  was  rising  or  setting,  but  now  at  length  I  have 
the  happiness  to  know  that  it  is  a  rising  and  not  a  setting  sun.'  " 

362 


THE   CONSTITUTION-MAKER 

So  Franklin,  from  whose  life  picturesqueness  and 
charm  were  seldom  absent,  gave,  in  his  easy  manner, 
to  the  close  of  the  dry  details  of  the  convention  a 
touch  of  beautiful  and  true  sentiment  which  can 
never  be  dissociated  from  the  history  of  the  republic 
he  had  helped  to  create. 


363 


Index 


Academy  established  by  Franklin, 

74-5- 

of  Madame  Helvetius,  330. 

ADAMS,  John,  295,  297,  303-5; 

criticisms  of  Franklin,  306-12; 

his  difficulties  with  Vergennes, 

321 ;  opposed  to  France,  322-3, 

341-6 ;  Franklin  criticises,  345-6. 

,  Mrs.  John,  328-9. 

Advertising,    Franklin's    methods 

of,  141-2. 
Air-baths,  25-6. 
Albany  Conference,  201,  352-3. 
ALLEN,  Chief- Justice,  122. 
Alliance,  treaty  of,  299-303. 
Almanac,  Franklin's,  143-52. 
American    Philosophical   Society, 

196. 

Amusements  as  a  youth,  18,  20. 
Ancestors  of  Franklin,  42,  132. 
Aristocracy,  colonial,  opposed  to 

Franklin,  124. 

Arithmetic,  Franklin  learns,  51. 
"  Armonica,"  the,  185. 
Asaph,  St.,  the  Bishop  of,  227,  348  ; 

his  daughters,  227-8. 
Asbestos  purse,  the,  63. 
Assembly,  Franklin  clerk  of,  159; 

elected  a  member  of,  199. 
"  Associators,"  the,  199. 
AUSTIN,  Jonathan,  301. 
Autobiography,  Franklin's,  158. 

BACHE,  Sarah,  119,  265. 
BAKER,  Polly,  139. 
Ballads  by  Franklin,  45. 


BANCROFT,  Dr.  Edward,  288. 
BARTRAM,  John,  192. 
BEAUMARCHAIS,  279-83. 
Black  Prince,  the,  315. 
BLAGDEN,  Dr.  Charles,  182. 
Blood,  causes  of  heat  of,  29. 
Books  read  by  Franklin,  44. 
Bows  and  arrows,  Franklin  sug 
gests  use  of,  266. 
BRADDOCK,  Franklin  visits,  200. 
BRILLON,  Madame,  325-7. 
Broad  jokes  of  Franklin,  125. 
Broom-corn,  184. 
BURGOYNE  surrender  of,  301. 
"  Busy  Body"  papers,  135. 

Canada,  cession  of,  336;   Frank-/ 
lin's  journey  to,  267-9. 

CARROLL,  Rev.  John,  96,  267. 

Celibacy,    Franklin's     dislike    of,| 
106,  349. 

CHATHAM,     Lord,     assists     the 
Americans,  261. 

CHAUMONT,  Ray  de,  275,  347. 

Chevaux-de-frise  devised  by  Frank 
lin,  266. 

Chimneys,  smoky,  183. 

Claims  for  extra  service,  164-5. 

Clerk  of  the  Assembly,  159,  197. 

COBBETT,  his  attack  on  Franklin, 
123. 

Colds,  Franklin's  theory  of,  27-9. 

College  of  Philadelphia  founded, 
74-6. 

COLLINS,  John,  19-20,  45,  57. 

COLLINSON,  Peter,  172-3,  177. 


365 


INDEX 


Constitution  of  Pennsylvania,  349, 

353-4- 

,  signing  of,  361-2. 

Constitutional  Convention  of  1787, 
356. 

Constitution-making,  349-63. 

Constitutions,  American,  trans 
lated  into  French,  355. 

Contentment  of  Franklin,  21. 

CONWAY,  Mademoiselle,  332. 

Courant,  New  England,  80-1. 

COVERLEY,  Sir  Roger  de,  144-5. 

Creed,  Franklin's,  88-91. 

DEANE,  Silas,  270,  278,  288,  289- 

91. 

Death  of  Franklin,  39-40. 
Deep  water,  effect  of,  on  vessels, 

181. 
DE  FOE'S  "  Essay  upon  Projects," 

193- 

Deism,  Franklin's,  80,  84,  91. 

DENHAM,  Mr.,  befriends  Frank 
lin,  59,  65,  133. 

DESPENCER,  Lord  le,  98,  242. 

Diseases  of  Franklin,  34-40. 

Diurnal  motion  of  the  earth,  186-7. 

"  Dogood,  Silence,"  135. 

Dreams,  Franklin's  fondness  for, 
26. 

Edict  of  the  King  of  Prussia,  241-2. 
Education,  defects  of  modern,  47- 

50- 

Electricity,  172-8. 

ELIOT,  Jared,  170. 

"  Ephemera,  The,"  154-5,  325-6. 

Epitaph  of  Franklin  on  himself, 
153 1  comic  epitaphs,  154 ;  on 
the  Penns,  223 ;  on  Franklin, 
224;  on  the  squirrel,  228. 

Examination    before    Parliament, 

234-9. 
Exercise,  Franklin's  opinion  of,  37. 


"  Fireplace,  Pennsylvania,"  170. 
Fisheries,  the,  337,  340-2. 
FORD,  Paul   Leicester,  his   essay 

on    the    mother    of    Franklin's 

son,  106-7. 

FOTHERGILL,  Dr.,  213. 

FOXCROFT,  John,  104-5. 
France,   willingness    of,   to  assist 

America,    277-8 ;     loans    from, 

317-18  ;  Franklin's  love  for,  346 ; 

appointed  commissioner  to,  270 ; 

subserviency  to,  343  ;  departure 

from,  347. 
FRANKLIN,  Mrs.,  114-18,  120-1, 

137- 

,  William,  105-7,  113,  214. 

,  William  Temple,  106,  214. 

Free  ships,  316. 

French,    enthusiasm    of   the,   for 

Franklin,  273-5. 
,  Franklin's  knowledge  of,  71. 

74,  325-6. 
Fur  cap,  Franklin's,  274. 

Gazette,  Pennsylvania,  founded  by 
Franklin,  135-42 ;  advertise 
ments  in,  142. 

Girls,  Franklin's  fondness  for, 
128-9,  332-3. 

GODFREY,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Thomas, 

134.  143- 

Gout,  dialogue  of  the,  with  Frank 
lin,  35- 

Governor,  the  Assembly's  contests 
with  the,  204. 

Governor's  salary,  contests  about, 
201. 

"  Great  Empire,  Rules  for  Re 
ducing  a,"  240-1. 

Gulf  Stream,  181-2. 

HALL,  David,  Franklin's  partner, 

160. 

HARTLEY,  David,  319. 
"  Hat  Honor,"  82-3. 


INDEX 


HELVETIUS,  Madame,  327-30. 
HOPKINSON,  Thomas,  173. 
Hospital,   the   Pennsylvania,  123, 

195. 

HoUDETOT,  Countess  d1,  332-4. 
HOWE,  Lord,  262,  269. 
HUGHES,  John,  232. 
Hutchinson  Letters,  the,  245-60. 

Illegitimate  children  of  Franklin, 

104. 

Immorality,  Franklin's,  103. 
Indolence,  Franklin's,  21. 
IZARD,  Ralph,  286-7. 

"  Jacobite,  The  Genealogy  of  a," 

139- 

JAY,  John,  318,  338-9,  341-2- 
Junto,  the,  66-70. 

KAMES,  Lord,  158,  186,  215. 
KEIMER,  54-5,  65, 133-5. 
KEITH,  Governor,  55,  56-9. 
KlNNERSLEY,    Ebenezer,    I73~4. 

178. 
Kite  experiment,  175-6. 

Languages,  modern,  71-2. 

Latin,  Franklin  learns,  71 ;  wants 
to  abolish  the  study  of,  72. 

LEE,  Arthur,  286,  291-5. 

LEEDS,  Titan,  145-6. 

Legislature,  Franklin  clerk  of,  159 ; 
elected  a  member  of,  199. 

Lehigh  Valley,  expedition  to, 
207-9. 

"  Liberty  and  Necessity,"  Frank 
lin's  pamphlet  on,  60-3,  85-6. 

Library,  the  Philadelphia,  193-4. 

Liturgy,  Franklin's,  89-90. 

Loans  from  France,  317-18. 

London,  Franklin's  first  visit  to, 
59 ;  his  life  there,  60-5. 

Louis  XVI.  gives  his  portrait  to 
Franklin,  347. 

Love  of  money,  Franklin's,  160. 


MALTHUS,  190. 

Manures,  mineral,  184. 

MARBOIS,  342. 

Maritime  suggestions,  188-90. 

Marriage,  Franklin  favors,  106, 
349 ;  attempts  it  for  himself, 
109,  in ;  marries  Mrs.  Rogers, 
112-13. 

MATHER,  Cotton,  66,  68,  81,  158, 

193- 

MAURY,  187-8. 
MECOM,  Jane,  130. 
Mercury,  the,  134-5.  I42- 
MEREDITH,  Hugh,  133,  136. 
Militia,    Franklin    organizes    the, 

198. 

law  drafted  by  Franklin,  206. 

Mississippi,  navigation  of  the,  341. 
Mistress,  Franklin's  advice  on  the 

choice  of  a,  126-7. 
Modern  languages,  71-2. 
Molasses,  export  duty  on,  302-3. 
Money,  Franklin's  love  of,  160. 
Moral  code,  Franklin's,  102,  108. 
Music,  185. 

Nepotism,  164,  293. 

Northeast  storms,  origin  of,  169. 

Nuncio,  the  papal,  96-7. 

Oil,  effect  of,  on  waves,  182-3. 
Ordination  of  bishops,  96-7. 
OSWALD,  commission  of,  337-9. 

Paper  money,  Franklin's  pamphlet 
on,  70. 

Parable  against  persecution,  155-8. 

Paralytic  people  brought  to  Frank 
lin,  33i- 

PARKER,  Theodore,  106. 

Passy,  Franklin  at,  275. 

PASSY,  Mademoiselle  de,  306. 

"  Paxton  Boys,"  219-20. 

Peace,  proposals  of,  319;  treaty 
of,  335- 


367 


INDEX 


"  Pennsylvania  Fireplace,"  170. 

Hospital,  195. 

Peopling  of  countries,  190. 

Perfumes,  Franklin's  letter  on, 
126. 

Persecution,  parable  against,  155-8. 

Philadelphia,  Franklin's  first  jour 
ney  to,  52-4. 

Library,  193-4. 

Plagiarism,  26,  152. 

Plan  of  life,  Franklin's,  85. 

Polly  Baker's  speech,  139. 

PONTIAC,  conspiracy  of,  218. 

"  Poor  Richard,"  143-52. 

Portraits  of  Franklin,  30-3. 

Postmaster  of  Philadelphia,  159. 

Postmaster-General  of  the  colo 
nies,  162;  under  Congress,  265. 

Prayer-book,  Franklin's  revision 
of,  98-101. 

PRIESTLEY,  Joseph,  213. 

Privateering,  Franklin  opposed  to, 
317. 

Profits  of  business,  159-61,  163-5. 

Proprietary  estates,  taxing  of,  204- 
5,  209-10,  216-17,  221. 

Proprietorship,  abolition  of,  221-6, 
231. 


RALPH,  a  friend  of  Franklin,  59, 

64. 

RAY,  Miss  Catharine,  128. 
READ,  Miss,  54,  58,  60,  65-6,  112. 
Reading  as  a  boy,  42. 
Recommendation,  letters  of,  319- 

20. 

"  Reprisal,"  the,  271-2. 
Retirement  from  business,  160-1. 
RITTENHOUSE,  David,  168. 
Rolls,  Franklin's  story  of  the,  54. 
ROMILLY,     Sir     Samuel,     visits 

Franklin,  350. 
Royal    government,    petition    to, 

221-6,  231. 


"  Rules  for  Reducing  a  Great 
Empire,"  240-1. 

Sabbath -breaker,  Franklin  as  a, 
78,  93- 

Salaries  of  Franklin's  offices,  163-4. 

Salary  of  the  President,  Franklin 
opposes,  357. 

School-days,  41. 

Scotch-Irish,  the,  219-20. 

Sedentary  life  of  Franklin,  22. 

Self-made  man,  Franklin  as  a,  41. 

Senate,  composition  of  the,  360. 

Shallow  water,  effect  of,  181. 

SLOANE,  Sir  Hans,  63. 

Small-pox,  inoculation  for,  81. 

SMITH,  Rev.  William,  76,  122. 

Smoke-consuming  stove,  184. 

Smoky  chimneys,  183. 

Soldier,  Franklin  as  a,  207. 

Spain,  her  interests  in  the  Missis 
sippi,  340. 

Spectator,  The,  analyzed  by  Frank 
lin,  46. 

Stamp  Act,  231-9. 

States,  the  smaller,  358. 

STEVENSON,  Miss  Mary,  129. 

,  Mrs.,  2H-I2. 

Storms  from  the  northeast,  169. 

STRAHAN,  William,  213,  267. 

Street-cleaning,  196. 

Subserviency  to  France,  334-5, 343. 

Swimming,  18-19. 

SYNG,  Philip,  173. 

Taxing  the  estates,  204-5,  209-10, 

216-17,  221- 
Temperance,  24-5. 
TEMPLE,    John,    his    duel    with 

Whately,  249. 
THOMPSON,  Mrs.,  calls  Franklin 

a  rebel,  331. 

THUNDER,  Marquis  of,  306. 
TRUXTON,  Captain,  348. 
TURGOT,  311-12. 


368 


INDEX 


Union,  plans  of,  352-3. 

Vegetarianism,  22. 
VEILLARD,  Le,  347. 
Ventilation,  29. 
Venus,  transit  of,  168. 
VERGENNES,  277,  281,  303,  321-2, 

324,  338,  34L  344- 

"  Virtue,  The  Art  of,"  planned  by 
Franklin,  109. 

VOLTAIRE,  resemblance  of,  to 
Franklin,  280;  embraces  Frank 
lin,  306. 

War,  Franklin's  opinion  of,  191. 


War,  Quaker  opinion  of,  203. 

Water,  depth  of,  as  affecting  ves 
sels,  181. 

Water-drinking,  23. 

Water-spouts,  180. 

Wealth  of  Franklin,  165. 

WEDDERBURN,  256-9. 

WHATELY,  Thomas,  his  duel  with 

Temple,  249. 

j  Whistle,  story  of  the,  60. 
|  WHITEFIELD,       Rev.      George, 

94-5- 

WILLIAMS,  Jonathan,  293-8. 
!  Writing,   Franklin   trains   himself 
in,  46. 


THE    END. 


369 


14  DAY  USE 
14  ^SBORKOWBD 


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